


Geas of Gryffindor

by Kirinin



Series: Kindred Powers [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (unlike the prequel), Action/Adventure, Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Narcissa Black-Malfoy, BAMF Severus Snape, Deathly Hallows AU, Doppelganger, Drama, F/F, F/M, Families of Choice, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Harry can be an idiot, Horcrux Hunting, I swear this will all make sense., Land of the Dead, Life Debt, M/M, Multiple Pairings, Narcissa pretty much belongs on GoT, Politics, Potions, Power Dynamics, Redeemed Draco, Ron Is a Very Good Friend, Some sense anyway., Telepathic Bond, Torture, but he's our idiot, darker and edgier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 08:37:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 157,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2645333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirinin/pseuds/Kirinin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Harry disrupts the spell to retrieve Sirius from the Veil, Ron and Draco find themselves in the middle of an ongoing war, forced to scramble and strategize as only they can. </p>
<p>Elsewhere/when, Albus Dumbledore falls from the Astronomy Tower, Severus Snape is at wit's end, and a desperate Draco Malfoy receives help from an unlikely source. </p>
<p>In other words, TAKE THAT, CANON.</p>
<p>~Updates on Wednesdays and Sundays, barring hell or high water.~</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The hot summer day that they were going to bring Sirius Black from beyond the Veil, Harry Potter disappeared somewhere into the bowels of the mostly-empty Hogwarts Castle.

Ron was too busy cutting, chopping, and pulverizing whatever was handed him to pay very much attention, though Draco complained bitterly that Harry wasn't around to do his fair share of the work.  "It's not as though he could talk about anything else since we told him," the blond muttered, giving an ashwagandha root a particularly vicious chop.

Ron unfurled the Marauders' Map and sighed when he saw that Harry was still moping about in the empty Transfigurations room.  Draco leaned over his shoulder and made a noise much like a cornered cat.

Hermione shrugged diplomatically, looking up from the loops and curlicues of the rune-circle she was chalking on the Potions room floor.  "I think Harry is feeling ambivalent."  Hermione looked up at Ron and paused a beat after using the larger word.  "I do believe," she went on after a moment, "that he intended to retrieve Sirius on his own, once we'd helped him figure out the spell."

Draco's eyes flashed, then narrowed.  "That sounds _precisely_ like him.  I'll have to remind him that I didn't save his life just so that he could toss it in the rubbish bin the moment it suits him.  I saved him and that means part of him is _mine._ "

Ron and Hermione grinned at him.  "Have we told you lately how glad we are to have you around?" Hermione laughed.  "That's the perfect thing to tell him; you just wait, he'll go all funny and stomp off, but he'll secretly agree that he owes you."

Draco pinked at the unexpected praise.  "Yes, well."

Ron watched Draco's blush grow with fascination – Draco was still surprisingly innocent in some ways, and that included fumbling his way around an honest compliment.  Still, he could only watch the other boy fidget for so long.  "I'm done with the ashwagandha; now what?"

"A circle of protection and a circle of isolation," Hermione recited.  "We don't want to bring the whole _Potions-room_ to the Land of the Dead, or Hogwarts Castle, or, Merlin forbid, all of England!  And we certainly don't want to bring the Land of the Dead here.  Rune circles create magical boundaries, to keep things in – or out."

"Or both," Draco replied, his answering smile causing some dried plant matter to drop from his right cheek to his borrowed work trousers.  Ron thought Draco's snakeskin belt (complete with silver snake's head buckle) looked pretty ridiculous holding up the old brown corduroys he'd grown out of in fifth-year.  Harry's things might have fit Draco better, but as Harry was clearly still wallowing in ambivalence they'd had to make do.

Hermione was still trying to instruct, so Ron put on his best listening face.

"…which keep out demons of all kinds."

"Well, that's good."

The young witch's expression turned reproachful.  "Now, Ron, demons have all been painted with the same brush, but some of them can be quite useful –"

"But they're _all_ dangerous," Malfoy commented.  "And obviously all this working with me has gone to her head – or perhaps her moral centre –"

" – but in any case," Hermione went on, swatting Draco absently, "the most important one is here, the Barrier rune atop the World rune, it holds all the others together –"

And Ron could see how all of the other runes spiraled away from it or towards it or both, seeming to lead the eye to the World-Barrier.  He had to unfocus his eyes to stop them from tracing and retracing the loops, swirls, and curlicues.  "Brilliant," he said, meaning it.  The technical skill required to create the rune-circle impressed him, never mind the intellectual ability required to truly understand all of it.  Hermione and Draco had been working at it for over a month, Hermione on the Arithmancy, Draco on the Runework.  Ron felt a bit dense alongside the two of them, if he were being honest.

Then there was a knock at the Potions-room door and Professor Lupin slipped inside.  He looked more harrowed than ever, but his eyes burned with a feverish light.  "I don't want to alarm anyone," he murmured, "but I believe we're ready." 

Ron wondered yet if Lupin and Snape had yet cast _Dare animus,_ the spell that was meant to pass Lupin's power to Snape.  Retrieving Black from beyond the Veil was too difficult for one wizard's power alone, but the exchange left Lupin vulnerable, as powerless as a Squib. 

Professor Snape tsked.  "Standing in the doorway again, Lupin?  Move your worthless hide."  But then he placed one hand on each of Lupin's shoulders and steered him out of the way; and Lupin looked back at him and smiled, uncoiling just a hair.

Ron tried to exchange a significant look with Hermione, but she was still absorbed in checking and re-checking her runes.  He looked to Draco, but the other boy was piling up ashwagandha in his hands and dropping the last of it into the steaming cauldron.  Ron couldn't escape the feeling that he was in Potions class again, and got that funny tied-up feeling in his guts as he waited for Snape's approach.

Professor Snape peered over the top of the cauldron and sniffed.  "Another quarter-hour or so," was the verdict.  Lupin took him by the elbow and they retreated to some dark corner to argue in hushed voices.  Hermione and Draco triple-checked their work, then sat by Ron with the same worry line across their foreheads.

"I know," Ron said to them, showing them Harry's fixed position on the Map.  "But he has to come, we're doing this for him."

"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed.  "This is Sirius Black, a living human being, not some trinket you mean to gift-wrap for Harry's birthday!"

Ron could _feel_ Draco squirm beside him as they both tried to avoid letting on by look or deed that the words 'birthday' and 'present' had both been used in conjunction with the planning of this particular spell.

"Would we even be doing this if not for precious Potter's neuroses?" Draco inquired, regaining his equilibrium.  "Black threw himself to the fire once.  Who's to say he won't again, and all our efforts will be wasted?"

Ron suddenly found the sunny scene out the window fascinating.  It wasn't as though he wasn't aware that Sirius was rash and impulsive, but he hadn't let himself think about it too closely.  He turned to Hermione, only to find her fiddling with the hem of her skirt with downcast eyes.

"Though it's a little late for second thoughts," Draco went on, characteristically reversing his argument the moment any of the others appeared to agree with him.

"I've been hoping this might turn Harry around," Hermione blurted, still twisting her hands in her lap.  "He's been awfully moody since December.  I should have thought he'd be happy we were all staying over the summer, that he didn't have to go back to the Dursleys again."

"Perhaps since he no longer has the _Obscura_ to fall back on, he needs to find more mundane ways of reining in his temper, like the rest of us," Draco quipped.

"And perhaps he's just being _Harry_ ," Ron said.  "Perhaps it's his bloody time of the month.  Not everything he does is of weighty import."

"Ron," Hermione protested in her favorite _you-fool_ voice, "the last time Harry was acting oddly, he was staying here at Hogwarts over the summer, reviving a deadly, ages-old mental magic and having his mind wiped while pretending to be gardening at home."

Ron paused to consider.

"…and then there was the time he was hearing voices in the walls –"

Luckily, Snape chose that moment to break away from Professor Lupin and approach the trio.  "We are going to have to begin, or the potion will congeal."

"Whatever you do – " Lupin began.

"Don't break the circle," the trio chanted.

The Potions Master whirled on them.  "You are _not_ to make light of the danger.  Even to think of the innumerable ways in which it could go wrong –"  He paused to shake his head.

"It will be fine, Severus – it must be," Lupin replied, placing a careful hand between the professor's shoulderblades.

"Irrefutable logic," Snape grumbled, but the line of tension through his shoulders eased somewhat.

"But we can't start without Harry…" Hermione protested.

Snape looked angry, Ron thought, and maybe even a little disappointed.  "We must."  He dipped a silver chalice into the potion and quaffed a large draught.

After a moment of silence, Lupin shook him by the arm.  "Severus?"

"It's fine," was the reply.  "It's – oh."  The dark man blinked.  "I think you'd best help me into the circle _quickly_."

Together the two men hobbled there, careful not to smudge Hermione's painstaking work; a word from Lupin and the lights extinguished.  Draco, Hermione, Ron and Lupin moved to the circle's perimeter, raising their wands and casting the runic symbols for Protection, Barrier, Trust, and Reclamation.  Ron's heart pounded in rhythm to Draco and Hermione's chanting, even as he cast the rune for Trust over and over again into the black.

Professor Snape's form began to glow, bright as burning.  Then the glow faded, and then the Professor himself seemed to begin to fade as well, fitful as a flickering candle flame.  At first, Ron thought it was his imagination, but soon there was no mistaking that he could see the rough-hewn stone that made up the bulk of the castle walls through his professor's torso.

The sound of the door slamming open behind Ron distracted him for a key moment – _wasn't that warded shut? -_ and the circle began to unravel.

"Harry!" Hermione gasped as a figure dashed into the room, and Draco's chanting faltered; because Harry was glowing, too, sunset-bright, just like Professor Snape…

Harry was flying into the circle, careless feet smudging... the World Barrier Rune, Ron realized: they would have to start over… but now Harry was trying to take Snape's place... he was shoving the now-weaker man away from the center of the circle...

With a cry, Ron broke ranks, trying to wrest Harry away; but the smaller boy fought with such desperation that Ron could barely keep hold of him.  "Right then," he heard, and Draco appeared at his side.  Between the two of them, they managed to throw Harry clear of the quaking circle.  The existing runes flared white-hot, but they were writhing, Ron noted with some alarm, _unraveling –_

The darkness was suddenly full of noise; muffled, true, but it sounded like shouting.

And stars, Ron realized as his eyes adjusted, stopped burning with flashing afterimages.  He was outside the castle.  Somehow he'd passed out, laid flat on his back.  He could feel the cool, vague lumpiness of grasses and reeds pressing into his shoulderblades and arse.  The night sky held a vaguely green tinge that he knew should alarm him somehow, but he was having trouble focussing, the way he did after a long-distance Apparition.

A groan sounded beside him.  "Draco.  Draco!" Ron urged in a low, careful voice.  He knelt beside the origins of the sound and clasped a cotton-covered shoulder.  "Wake up, mate, we don't want to be sleeping now…"

Draco blinked his grey eyes open and rolled to his knees.  "What -?"

"We're out on the grounds."

Draco peered around.  "It – is it colder?"  He shivered, turning completely to face Ron, who could make out the curve of his throat and the flash of his eyes in the near-black.

Ron nodded, eyes scanning the surrounding area.  "Dementors?"

"Can't feel any."

A low howl split the night.

"Fuck, d-did you hear that?" Draco stammered, standing bolt-upright.

Ron yanked him back down by a convenient corduroy belt-loop.  "Are you mad?  Stay low!"

"T-that was a werewolf!"

"All the more reason to stay low!"  Ron looked up, scanned the horizon.  "Not a full moon, though..."

"Fine, then, just a _mundane_ ravening animal…"

Ron blinked at Draco, who was shivering.  He had just opened his mouth to say something he hoped would be comforting when a loud and sudden thump made the pair of young wizards start, then freeze.

Ron caught Draco's eye and brought a silent finger to his lips.  Draco shook his head wildly, but Ron pressed a comforting hand to his shoulder again, and crept soundlessly forward, around the back of the castle, his wand drawn.

"Oh," Ron said faintly, and turned back around with a lot less care in his stride than before.

Draco pulled him down amongst the tall reeds so violently that Ron practically fell on him.  "What?" he hissed.  "What is it?"

"It's Dumbledore," Ron replied numbly.  "He's fallen off the Astronomy Tower."

Draco's eyes narrowed.  " _What_?" he demanded, then disappeared off in the same direction.

Ron heard the sounds of someone being noisily sick a moment later.

Draco stumbled back, wiping his mouth.  "Shit," he said, succinctly.  "Shit – fuck, we – can he have fallen?"

"I don't know."

"Because it seems like – I mean, Harry fell off his broom once, and Dumbledore – Dumbledore made him lighter so he wouldn't die, why didn't he just do that for himself?"

"I don't know."

"Unless he was killed and then throw –"  Draco cut off mid-word, eyes flashing white around the edges.  "… _tell_ me you didn't hear _that_?"

Ron looked up at the castle, where lights were flashing on all over.  Either someone was aware of the current disaster, or there were other, concurrent disasters.  The answer became clear as bright green, red, and royal purple flashes began to shine like fireworks through the windows of Hogwarts.

Curses.  Battle!

Draco's features hardened in a way that made him look strikingly like Harry, and he tugged on Ron's sleeve.  "C'mon, we've got to go, we've got to go _now_ –"

Ron's limbs felt thick and heavy, but he stood at Draco's urging, stumbling after him towards the castle's large, oaken front doors; but then the doors were banging open, striking the castle walls with too much force to have been opened by anything other than magical means.  A pale-haired boy wizard fairly flew out of them, cloak flapping in the wind.  Every now and again, he stumbled.  Draco took a few, stuttering steps towards him.  "We should help him –"

Ron forcibly shook free of the last of the shock.  "No, we'll do more good inside.  Come on!"  Ron took Draco's arm and jogged quickly but carefully in the dark, towards Hogwarts' front doors.

Before they could reach them, a small cadre of wizards broke free of the castle walls…  Ron caught a disconcerting eyeful of dark robes and white masks just before he pulled Draco back behind him to shelter behind the open doors; but it was too late, they'd been spotted.

It didn't seem to matter to anyone but a small, stocky witch, who turned, then laughed nastily.  "One or two more for the road?" she wondered.

"You stay away from us!" Ron shouted, bringing his wand to bear, the other arm pressing Draco behind him.

Another figure, taller and somehow more impressive than the strange Death Eater, swept her away with a look and a wave.  "We don't have time for this!" a half-familiar voice shouted from beneath the hood, "for _children_!  We must go!  Potter is behind us!"

"Harry?" Draco whispered, quiet but alert, as though the power of Harry's name had grounded and focussed him.  The Death Eaters were moving, limping, half-running off towards the Forest… and then Harry himself burst through the doors at a dead run, shouting for Snape.

Draco's outstretched fingers missed him by inches – Harry flew past without seeing a thing, his focus all on the Death Eaters ahead.

"That was the Professor," Draco said.  "Before!  With the Death Eaters – but they're all dead - scattered - "

"We thought they were," Ron replied lowly.  "Some of them must have survived, and they thought they'd get revenge – Merlin, _Dumbledore –_ "

"We've got to go, we've got to help Harry," Draco insisted, and then he was off, chasing after the Death Eaters like a madman.

"Draco, no!" Ron shouted, then took off in pursuit.  He saved his breath from then on for the mad dash.

Snape, Ron soon discovered, was a quick runner – he had long, gangling legs that made wide, athletic strides.  But Harry in a froth was a match for him…

Ron ran straight into Draco from behind.  "Thank Merlin you've stopped, you idiot, this place is thick with Death Eaters –"

"No," Draco whispered.  "Look."

Harry was shouting something that was hard to hear at a distance, but his body, vibrating with energy, and his wand, raised and trembling and _pointed at Snape_ spoke for him.

"You don't suppose he thinks Snape could have let them into the castle…?" Draco muttered.  "Doesn't Harry remember, they _tortured_ him, he wouldn't – couldn't, not ever – _Harry_!"

Because the word on Harry's lips was loud enough for even Ron and Draco to hear: the Cruciatus Curse.

" _Obscura_ ," Draco said, choked.  "It has to be.  Harry wouldn't do this if he were in his right mind.  He wouldn't let go of the one with Sirius dying, said he couldn't!  That's why he disrupted the spell – he's gone mad!"

The Professor's body language could be read as easily as Harry's: he was trying to appear as frightening and forbidding as possible without actually doing the boy any real damage.  But there were other Death Eaters around, and one of them was sneaking up on Harry.

"We have to _do_ something!" Draco shouted, shaking Ron.

"We don't know what Snape's game is, yet," Ron told him, surprised when his voice barely trembled.  "Let _him_ protect Harry – anything else could get them both killed… we can't move until we know…"  Behind Ron's calm words, his chest felt tight and his eyes stung, and part of him was still caught in disbelief.  Dumbledore was dead, and Snape was running with the Death Eaters, and Harry –

Harry was under the Cruciatus Curse, and quite possibly mad, and they just had to _wait it out_.

Draco's hand clutched unselfconsciously at his own, and together they crouched in the reeds while the dim light of curses cast out the dark.  Ron couldn't feel his fingers, but his own grip was tight, too, clenched with fear and anger and helplessness.

Then Hagrid came out of his hut to help Harry, and it was like watching a boulder rolling downhill – once the half-giant's bulk got moving, it seemed to become near-impossible to stop him.  Snape broke from the press of the battle and dashed off for the woods.

Draco shook Ron off and broke into a dead run.

"NO!" Ron shouted.

"You take care of Harry!" Draco told him, calling without slowing or turning, and Ron realized he was running _after Snape_.

Ron swallowed, torn – behind him, Harry was still fighting, and before him, Draco was re-entering the world of Death Eaters, the world from which he had torn himself only months ago; but Draco's words flew through his mind like scattering birds: _take care of Harry – take care of Harry…_

Always.

Ron was off and running.


	2. Chapter 2

Draco's lungs burned badly enough so that he wished he hadn't forgone Quidditch for the past few weeks in favor of the library.  At least Ron's loose trousers meant he could run faster than most of the others; he was gaining on his professor and the Death Eaters, and would soon overtake them.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ron reaching Harry, helping him put out the flames that had risen to engulf Hagrid's hut.  Before him, he could see Snape, running – and who knew the older wizard could cover ground so quickly?

They ran until Draco's lungs felt like they were on fire and he could run no more.  Then, he reached out and grabbed a handful of robe at Snape's waist.

"I! can't!" he panted, "run! anymore!"

Snape did a double-take, as though he had only just realized Draco was behind him.  Then he cuffed him soundly across the temple.  "I thought I told you to run _twenty minutes ago,_ you foolish boy!  You should be at Spinner's End by now!"

Draco stumbled away from him and put both hands atop his knees, leaning forward to even his breathing – they were well into the woods, now, and there was little chance that anyone would be able to track them through the Forbidden Forest.  They were also alone: now Draco remembered the other Death Eaters wheezing, stumbling, falling behind.  "I… don't remember… you saying that," he managed.

Snape's eyes flickered.  "I see.  So the sight of Dumbledore falling was a bit… traumatic, was it?"

Draco swallowed, feeling a prickling behind his eyes.

"Not so easy as it looks?"

There was something inherently nasty – and satisfied – in Snape's tone, a bite that Draco hadn't heard in a long time, but one that provoked a conditioned response: he came to attention, examining his professor's countenance for nuance before crafting his reply.

"I'm sorry," Draco finally replied.  "This must be very… difficult.  For you."  He put on his best sympathetic smile.  _Five points to Slytherin_ , he thought to himself.  He would be the first to admit he was still learning how to comfort others – but at least he could be taught.

Snape's expression, however, had frozen.  Slowly, he brought his wand to bear on the blond boy.  "Don't," he said, infusing the word with such venom that Draco actually stumbled back another step.  "I don't know what game you're playing, but whatever it is… for your safety and for my own… you _must stop_."  Snape's wand hand trembled, Draco saw, and Snape looked more furious than ever.

Draco raised both hands in careful surrender, realizing it was probably safest to agree, and move on.  "Yes, Professor.  Where are we headed?"

The rapid agreement seemed to calm Snape.  " _You_ are headed to a place where hopefully, the Dark Lord will not reach you."

Draco's breath caught.  If Voldemort had managed to return again, that explained a lot: Dumbledore's death, for one, and Snape's tight-lipped horror, beyond even the usual measure of grief, for another.

"We don't have the time for shock," Snape snapped.  "Now come along, or be left behind."  He reached out and took hold of Draco's arm.

Draco felt the sickening lurch of a poorly-performed side-along, and they were standing on a dark, abandoned street corner in a dark, dismal Muggle neighborhood.  Draco stumbled along behind Snape, who still had a firm hold of Draco's upper arm as though he were a prisoner, or a child who didn't know any better than to wander off.

"Where are we?" he whispered, conscious of the tension in the man, the rigidity of the near-painful grip on his arm.

"Spinner's End," Snape replied.  "I come here when all else fails…"  They were apparently headed towards a small, knock-down cottage, by far the most sagging and dismal of the sagging, dismal lot.

Inside was only marginally less dank than outside.  The carpets needed beating, choked with filth and grime; the curtains obviously had not been washed or even moved in months, as they were covered in a muffling layer of dust.  The only vaguely welcoming aspect of the small living area was a sofa, and the hundreds of shelved and unshelved books that littered the area, making it slightly more homey than a tomb.

Draco was appalled.  "Is this your _house_?" he demanded.  He thought Professor Snape would take better care of his properties than the shambles before him.  He would have thought that Lupin, in any case, would have made sure of it.

Professor Snape ignored him, moving to the kitchen area and opening the cupboards – the only clean part of the entire house, Draco realized, and for good reason.  Rather than foodstuffs, they were packed with a seemingly endless supply of potions and potions-ingredients. 

And tea.

Draco followed the dark-haired man into the alcove and rustled around for a kettle, hoping the familiar ritual would help rouse Snape.  Now that the running was over, Severus moved with the shuffling gait and dull eyes of a newly-raised Inferi.

Snape withdrew a small bottle from the cupboards, nodding to himself, though leagues away from his usual sharp attention.  He placed a tumblerful of liquid at the bottom of one teacup, then paused; after a moment's reflection, he added slightly less to the second.  Draco wasn't certain Snape could be trusted in his current frame of mind, so he cast a surreptitious _Aurelius toxicum_ charm over both cups.

Whatever the Professor intended to dose them with appeared to be benign.

"Recall, if it is within your capabilities, that to harm you would mean the end of me," Snape croaked.  "It is Erusco Philtre."

Draco gazed up at him from out of the corner of his eye as Severus placed the kettle on the hob.  "We could probably both use it."

Snape shot him another glare, but there was a certain degree of earnest puzzlement in his dark gaze, this time.

The tea whistle sounded, and Snape poured.  Then they sat in the living room, and sipped, silently.  What else did one do, in the middle of the dingiest, filthiest hovel to call one's own, Draco wondered, having fled one's workplace in the night, having seen one's mentor murdered?  What else but sip tea and consider what to do, next?

Draco supposed his professor would talk to him, would start thinking aloud, once the tea was finished and the _Erusco_ began to take effect.  Instead, Snape let the light of his _Lumos_ slowly die, swathing the little house at Spinner's End in darkness... which Draco had to admit was only kind to both the old place and its owner.  However, it made it impossible to make out the older wizard's eyes, to determine whether the man was thinking of their next move, or merely staring off into the black.

"Professor Snape," he chanced, lighting his own _Lumos_.  "Why have we come here?"

The light was sudden enough that Draco was able to catch the edge of the older wizard's flinch as he tumbled roughly free of his thoughts.  "We will not linger long," Snape replied, but that was no answer.  "Bellatrix knows of this place, by tomorrow she will have thought of it.  As it is, the Dark Lord may think we have fallen, or been captured, which gives us a brief measure of time.  Time enough to sleep, to plan, before we move."

"Are we going after the Death Eaters?" Draco choked.  He wanted to wound the men who had hurt Snape, and destroy those who'd damaged Harry – but he knew he was no fighter, antics on his broom aside.

" _I_ will be following them; _you_ will make a brief report to the Dark Lord –"

Draco went white and lost his sense of balance, slumping a bit sideways into the couch –

"– and retreat to Hogwarts, which is still the safest bastion of the Light.  I have made an Unbreakable Vow to protect you, and protect you I will, regardless of your blind desire for glory.  You will not be safe amidst that nest of vipers."

"If you've made an Unbreakable Vow –" Draco wondered to whom before making the logical leap and thinking _my mother_ in an unexpected starburst of warmth – "then placing me in reach of _Him_ would be the end of us both!"

"You may yet survive to see glory, since you would continue to be useful to him stationed at Hogwarts.  Besides which, he may not yet have discovered who dealt the killing blow.  If fate is with us, you will be out of his reach before he becomes aware."

Draco blew out a rough breath; he _had_ cast the Killing Curse from behind.  It was entirely possible that Voldemort had never learned who had actually murdered him, especially considering how few Death Eaters had escaped the scene.  "And what about you?  You can't mean to say you're going back to the Death Eaters on your own."

"Mister Malfoy," Professor Snape interjected, sounding for a moment like himself – tired, bitter, but half-amused – "that is only as it has always been.  Unless you are suggesting that you yourself accompany me?  After spending the year denying my offers of aid, surely you do not believe I should turn to you?"

"I accepted your help eventually, didn't I?" Draco shot back, remembering that horrific time in the Hospital Wing, when his professor had finally discovered he was not sleeping, that Harry's dreams of Voldemort had bled to him.  It was true he'd kept it secret for a long time, but he had needed and been grateful for Severus's help, when it came.  "Besides, no matter what I said to you at first, you know I just wanted out…"

"Well, you're out of it now," Snape said with an air of finality.

Which again brought forth the image of a vigilante Snape striking forth on his own, potentially dying in the process.  _Allies, we need allies._ "When I go back to Hogwarts and talk to the others, they'll understand why you had to run –"

The strangest expression stole over Snape's features – _longing_ , Draco realized after a moment's study, desire so sharp it cut.  When the older man's voice emerged, it was so hoarse with emotion it sounded like the cawing of a crow.

"I can never return," he rasped.  "The Headmaster of Hogwarts and the leader of the Order of the Phoenix is _dead,_ I've killed him."

For a brief, horror-struck moment, Draco's thoughts stilled completely.  But then, after the events of the previous year, little could surprise him for very long.  _Right, then.  So there has to be a reason.  There's a_ good _reason.  He – attempted to cast_ Imperio _on Snape, without his permission this time, or he Obliviated Harry_ …

Actually, that could explain why Harry hadn't trusted Snape, why he'd run at Snape –

"Then I know it had to be done," Draco finally said, quiet with conviction.  "And they'll know it too – Lupin, the Order.  You _have_ to trust them to know that, Professor..."

Severus paused.  And here Draco couldn't help but think of him that way, as _Severus_ , because he was sitting by Draco with a cooling cup of tea in his hands, hunched and miserable.  His hands, Draco now saw, gripped the teacup so firmly they whitened.  Draco had the startling and rather Gryffindorish impulse to kneel at his feet, to plead: _trust me, please trust me_ , just to remove that lost, bewildered expression from his Professor's features.

But he had forfeited the right to Severus's trust last winter, and he knew he was still earning it back.  He could only hope the Professor would place his faith in those more deserving – Professor Lupin, Harry, the Weasleys – and accompany Draco back to Hogwarts.

Snape's eyes lifted, slowly.  "Tomorrow, Mister Malfoy, we shall be very busy indeed.  We shall require an early start."

"Yes, sir."  Draco's mother had trained him well enough to recognize a polite dismissal when he heard one, even if he didn't like it.  He stood from the tatty couch and stretched.

"There's a bedroom you may use up the stairs, immediately to your right," Snape added.  His eyes did not follow Draco as the younger wizard made his way up the steps.

Draco opened a plywood door and cast his eyes about the room.  It was, apparently, a small bedroom, boasting a bed with a cast-iron frame and a thin, sagging mattress; a small, oval mirror hung on the wall, cracking with age or spent magic.  A threadbare, rectangular rug was spread out before the bed, and a tall dresser, much-gouged and abused, sat against the wall... though it was difficult to tell whether the wall held it up or vice-versa.  Everything was filthy; luckily, Draco knew two straightening charms from Ron and Hermione respectively, and was able to tidy the mattress and render it free of dust and stains, though he had to _Nox_ his wand to perform the additional charms.  He even managed the curtains, which he suspected would have kept him awake sneezing.

A gentle prod around the magic of the place showed that it had been spelled Unplottable, so that no owls could come or go, and Snape had apparently warded his door and window to prevent entry or exit.  Though Draco felt a brief stab of suspicion, he suspected he would have done the same in Snape's position.  Still, he had to let Ron know that he and the Professor were alive.

He shucked Ron's old corduroys and snuggled under the covers, then waited, napping fitfully until his wand informed him it was four in the morning.  Then, he closed his eyes and pictured Hermione's tear-streaked cheeks, the empty Slytherin dormitories, the feel of her in his arms, his own voice reassuring her: _…remember when they burned the body?  Remember that, Hermione?  We ground the bones to dust, after.  We scattered them.  There's nothing to come back to, do you understand?  He can't come back_.  And realizing that _himself_ , that the Dark Lord could never return, the certainty lighting him from the inside…

" _Expecto patronum!_ " he whispered.  A silvery light erupted from his wand.  "I have a message," he told the small animal that appeared, "for Ronald Weasley, at Hogwarts Castle…"

Loud pounding at the door woke Draco with a jolt, had him scrambling for Ron's corduroys and his belt.  " _Coming!_ " he shouted, but then Snape was through the door, looking dark and commanding and every bit as exhausted as he had the night before.

"Take these," he ordered, shoving a small bundle at Draco.  It gave a rich series of clinks and chimes at the rough treatment.

"Potions?"

"We do not know what we may need by the time our visit with the Dark Lord is through."

Draco poked at a corner of the tied cloth; a bottle of Skele-grow gleamed coldly from its dark confines.

"And I should hope I do not need to order you to Transfigure something more suitable to wear to an audience with the Dark Lord."

"I'm pretty bad at Transfigurations, McGonagall never liked me."

Snape's beetle-black eyes flashed.  "You will soon discover how little the Dark Lord enjoys excuses.  I have never had much of a taste for them, myself."  Still, he withdrew his wand and cast.

The brown corduroys tightened to a much finer weave, then bled forest before fading to a moss-like grey-green; silver buttons snaked across his waist.  Hermione's shirt fanned out into ruffles around his throat and wrists as silver snakes writhed in shining thread-of-silver along the collar.  Draco tucked it into his trousers, then charmed his teeth clean and his hair neat.

"You know that much, at any rate," Snape commented, and it was hard to tell from his flat tone whether that was compliment or criticism.  "Come.  We must go, or we will be suspected of disobeying His wishes."  Snape grasped Draco's upper arm and waved his wand and the small house was gone. 

Draco recognized the clearing in which they appeared instantly: it was his standard Apparition point for the Manor when he did not wish to be seen.  Either Draco had told Snape about this spot at some point, or their sense of strategy was even more similar than he had ever suspected.

Severus fell to an ominous silence, and Draco was too unsettled to fill the air with chatter.  _I trust Snape.  I trust him to protect me._   He swallowed past the doubt and the miasma of disloyalty that followed... but he couldn't help reliving his first meeting with the Dark Lord, where he had called out for help, and no-one had answered.

Just then they broke free of the trees, giving Draco his first unobscured look at the large manor on the hill, which cut short his racing thoughts.  The rose garden, normally in full bloom this time of year, was a disaster of trampled ground and torn petals.  One of the windows in the lower storeys had been smashed out from the inside; no effort had been made to patch or _Reparo_ the gaping hole.  His great-grandmother Celena's burgundy damask curtains fluttered through the damp, filthy from dirt and rain, the familiar tainted with the sinister.

He only realized he had halted when Severus regained possession of his left arm, the harsh press of fingertips a paradox of comfort and control.  He spared a moment to wonder if the other man's fingerprints would be permanently bruised into his flesh – a mark of angry possession to rival the Dark Lord's.

Snape's steadying grip was too reassuring to shake off, so Draco swallowed past his nausea and continued straight to the Manor gates, wrought iron twice as tall as he.  As they approached, Snape reached to tug his left sleeve down to the elbow, as if to show the Gate the Dark Mark curled around his forearm.

Draco's breath hitched, and he half-turned away to scrabble at his own sleeve in horror.  The Mark _pulsed_ there, underneath Hermione's transfigured tunic, dark and cold to the touch.

It'd been gone.  He _knew_ it had, healed by phoenix tears.  He could close his eyes and picture the unblemished skin, ruddy with the darkest tan a Malfoy could manage, freckled up and whole.  Draco closed his eyes and pressed his right hand over the phantom Mark, but his hand could not warm the abused flesh.  Instead, an icy prickle crept up his right arm with such insidiousness that he flinched back.

Draco looked up to meet Snape's gaze.  The older wizard's expression was smooth, unreadable – he appeared completely recovered from his strange behaviour of the evening before.  Draco lifted his left arm without taking his regard from the other man.  The echoed gesture caused the gates to swing open, slow and smooth.

As Draco moved up through the small, winding lane to the front doors of the Manor, his mind darted from idea to idea, attempting to escape the pit he saw yawning beneath him.  Both he and Severus had regained their Marks, but he supposed that made a terrible sort of sense: Fawkes had only been capable of removing them once Voldemort was well and truly gone.  Could it be that they had re-emerged at the Dark Lord's return?

 _That's not quite right, though,_ and of course it wasn't.  If Voldemort had been really and truly gone in the first place – not sort of dead, or somewhat dead, or mostly dead, but truly _gone_ – then he could not have come back, save as an ineffectual and incorporeal ghost.  And Fawkes's ability to heal their Marks proved he was completely gone.

Had been gone.

And was now back, which completed that paradox nicely.

Draco's head hurt.  Ron's intuitive sense and Hermione's calm logic would be more than welcome right now.  He felt as though he were chasing his metaphorical tail.

_Well – Snape's already figured it out.  He didn't even seem surprised the Mark was back – he expected it, somehow he knew.  And maybe if I could phrase it just right, I could ask…_

But something held him back, a bit of instinctive Ron-sense pressing his lips together.  _It's not just that he expected it_ , he finally decided after dissecting his impressions, _he didn't expect_ me _to be surprised, either._

By then they'd reached the door; Draco stood still and pale as death when the dark-painted door swung open to admit them.

Stepping beyond into Malfoy Manor was like falling back in time.  The white marble of the entryway gleamed, cool and pristine, threaded through with veins of dark grey.  Ahead and to his right, the familiar mahogany staircase wound sinuously upwards in the direction of his rooms.  A hallway intersected the foyer, leading both to the left and right.  A dozen, a hundred memories clamoured for his attention; ghostly Dracos, ages two, five, ten, twelve, ran through his mental landscape, padding across the smooth marble in stocking-feet – sometimes accompanied by his father, cool, impassive, strong; his mother, elegant, beautiful, composed.  And one memory always, always overshadowed them all: he and his mother in the sitting room at the very dawn of their grief for Lucius; and then Bellatrix sweeping through the door like a gay hurricane, announcing that Draco should prepare himself to _take his father's place_ , because he would be earning his Mark that very night.  The first time he'd _seen_ Voldemort, the first time he'd truly understood why so many fought him.

Trying to fight the man, the monster, himself.  Calling for help when that failed.

Receiving no answer.

He looked up to find Severus staring with one brow raised; he ducked his head to avoid the impression of dismay, if it was not already far too late.  A skittering sounded in the hallway and Draco looked up, his mental image of his mother shattering at the sight before him.

He had never seen his mother so thin, or so haggard; the difference in conception and reality was so pronounced that he gasped, then hitched his breath again as her thin arms rose to grip him almost painfully.

"Draco.  _Draco_ ," she whispered, her face pressed to his neck, her fingers clenching and unclenching spasmodically at his back.  She drew back only for a breath, dull blue eyes searching, scanning his features as if to verify that he was indeed who he appeared.  Then she reached out and pressed him to her again with one arm, the other snagging Severus, who issued a half-strangled noise at the contact, then pressed a careful hand to Narcissa's shoulder.

In a group hug with Snape and his mother was not how he would have pictured his homecoming.  If he was startled at Snape's possessive touch, he was astounded by his mother's – his mother, whose cool and unflappable grace he had always admired.

"Thank you," Narcissa breathed, her words a benediction as she pressed Severus and Draco to herself.  "Thank you, thank you – without you, Severus –"  She broke off into choking sobs.

Draco could feel Snape's entire body stiffen, and for a moment he thought the older wizard would shove them both away with all of his strength.  But then, he shuddered, and issued a sound much like Narcissa herself had; and Draco felt a hand press carefully, tentatively, between his shoulderblades.  He closed his eyes around the sudden storm of emotion, protective and covetous and fiercely glad.  And he came to realize that he trusted Severus to _try_ to save him from Voldemort, but was no longer certain he _could;_ that some time last night Severus Snape had diminished to become an ordinary man, muddling through disaster just as Draco was – and that made him feel uncertain but also less alone, so he lifted one arm to press a hand to Severus's back in turn.

But that seemed to break whatever spell of peace had so briefly clouded the man's judgment.  Severus stiffened so badly that Draco feared he would strain something, and his mother lifted her chin and wiped at her eyes.  "You are well," she said; and though she said it with an iron core of conviction threaded through her voice, her eyes flicked up and then down his body again.

"Yes," Draco said, unable to check the warmth that colored his voice.  "Yes, I'm fine.  Professor Snape has taken great pains."  Which seemed to be the thing to say, though Draco somehow had the feeling he didn't know the half of it, and never would.

Narcissa's cool smile widened into genuine pleasure, and Draco decided his initial shock was perhaps a bit exaggerated.  It was true Narcissa appeared slight, but there was a healthy flush to her cheeks, and her hair was piled atop her head attractively; her dress looked well on her.  "Did he?"  Her blue eyes flickered up and caught Severus's, sharing her gratitude with him again.

Draco looked up at his professor to catch the man's response, then blinked at his darting eyes and flushed cheeks.  Draco's own gaze flickered from his mother, to Snape, and then back again, with deepening suspicion.  "Yes," Draco drawled, frowning up at the dark-haired wizard.

Narcissa broke her staring contest with Severus and flashed another sweet smile at them both.  "You must be starving.  Tippy can make us some sandwiches; and there is a large pot of soup at all times, these days – due to our constant influx of… guests."

Draco allowed his mother to shoo him towards the kitchens, but Snape was less easily herded.  When Draco looked over his shoulder, the other man was still standing in the foyer, hands curled up and strangely empty-looking, a dark man in a sea of white.

"Narcissa," he said flatly, "are you certain He is gone?"

She paled for a breath, but then dipped her head to laugh.  "I discovered he was looking for a certain necklace, of great sentimental value to him."  She offered them a devious smile.  "I told him I recalled seeing it in one of the Black manses during my childhood.  He should be occupied until tomorrow at the very least."  When Severus quirked an eyebrow, her chin lifted.  "If you wish to speak to Him directly, I am certain I can firecall him back."

Severus nodded, but his voice was carefully neutral as he replied.  "I am sure a day's respite would do us no harm, Narcissa."  And he removed his shoes and followed the two towards the kitchens.

Draco sat at the small rosewood table they used for informal dining and stared at Snape's stocking-feet.  As he watched, Severus's toes wiggled, happy to be free of his heavy boots in the summer heat.

"Expecting hooves?" Snape queried.

Draco's eyes snapped up to the dark-haired man's face.  "Don't be ridiculous."  He accepted the glass of milk that Tippy handed him with a nod.  " _Fins_ ," he muttered around his first sip.

Snape snorted, just as Draco had intended he should.

Narcissa returned with soup and sandwiches.  Though Tippy had likely procured them, Draco couldn't help but find it touching that Narcissa wished to serve them herself.

She chattered idly about immaterial things as the sandwiches slowly disappeared: rose aphids, and her trip to the milliner's, and _Impedicanta_ , a curse she and Andromeda had invented one long, too-quiet summer when she was Draco's age.  The story earned a laugh from Draco and an expressive eye-roll from Snape as she described the way that no-one had been able to counter the new jinx, how all of her enemies and not a few of her friends had been left immobile and _singing_.

Then the meal was over, and they sat for a full minute, silent; Narcissa twisted her skirts in both hands; Draco examined his fingernails.  When even Snape started to look distinctly uncomfortable, Draco realized they wished to talk alone.  He stood.

Narcissa sent a startled look Draco's way, then winced.  "I am afraid Greyback took your rooms the very first time he was here.  Claimed it was too late to go home… invited himself.  Your things are rather –"  She paused, composed herself.  "Perhaps the Blue Room, on the third floor?"

Catching sight of his mother's plain distress, Draco interrupted.  "Mother," he interrupted her, catching both of her cold hands between his.  "Mother, it's all right.  I'd stay in the cellar or the northwest wing.  I'm home."

Narcissa's lashes blinked rapidly before wide blue eyes.  "You are right, of course," she replied, back straightening and offering a brave smile.  "We did not – _I_ did not – hope to ask for more than that.  And now you are both… here."  Her lips wobbled again as she gestured, somehow including Severus with her hands.  "In one piece."  She executed the now-familiar sweep of her eyes over Draco's form, cataloguing limbs intact.  "Well, then.  The Blue Room.  Pliny will see you there."

"No need; I know the way."  Draco pushed rapidly up the stairs, then sidled back down, his back pressed to the Manor's creamy wallpaper, shot with silver-and-gold.  He wasn't certain who Severus thought he was dealing with – perhaps he'd become too used to those biddable Gryffindors – but there was no way he was missing out on any important conversation between Severus and his mother, especially if it concerned him.

"…noted any difference in your son?" Severus inquired in a low, steady voice.

"But of course he is different," Narcissa breathed, the very essence of calm reassurance.  "He has seen the thestrals."

Draco suppressed a snort at this extremely delicate, outdated phrase.

"And perhaps his task has altered the romantic light in which he viewed service to our Lord," the Potions Master added with a grimace.  "Very well; you know him better than I."

A loud yawn had Narcissa apologizing graciously and calling Pliny to lead Severus up to the Green Room.

Draco fled up to the Blue Room and cautiously, soundlessly, joined the door to its frame; but no sooner than he had paced one, full circuit across the floor, mind whirring with unanswered questions, had the door flown open to reveal Severus Snape, wand aloft:

" _Immobilus! Incarcerus! Expelliarmus! Silencio Perispherico!_ "

Draco cursed as he flew into a Baroque mahogany chair and ropes lashed across his torso, his wand seeming to stay behind, slapping into Snape's waiting palm.  "What are you _doing_?" he demanded, then coughed in surprise and pain as Severus's own wand stabbed into the tender hollow just above his clavicle.  The fact that he could not even flinch away made it ache all the more.

"Do you think I am a fool?  Did you suppose I wouldn't notice?"

Severus's eyes were dark and wild; spittle flew from his mouth as he shouted.  The sudden return of the madman from the evening before struck Draco like a blow.  _You've been pretending to be all right_ , he thought, hurt and confused.  _As if Mother and I were the enemy from which to hide your weaknesses_.

 _I'm not here to betray you_ , he tried, but his lips refused to move; and besides, the other man was pacing around through the Blue Room, as though he were hunting for a specific object.

"No matter.  Stay there," Severus ordered with a hint of dark humour.

Draco tried to order his body to wriggle, attempted to flex the heart of his magic and break through the double-layer of spells, but Snape was back long before he could make an honest attempt, carrying a bottle of crystal-clear, infuriatingly familiar potion.  The dark-haired man forced Draco's mouth open with potions-stained fingers and removed the dropper from its bottle with exaggerated care.

Draco did not even have the satisfaction of struggling.  Instead, he glared angrily at the other man from above a hinged-open jaw as Severus pinched his fingers together to squeeze one… two… threefourfive drops of potion onto his tongue.

 _Don't panic; don't panic,_ Draco ordered, but of course he was panicking.  Snape's shaking hand had overdosed him by an order of magnitude.  He was frantically tracing mental Potions notes, attempting to recall the effects of Veritaserum poisoning when the potion took hold.

A curious lassitude overcame him first, and it seemed like his worries and fears unspooled, leaving him rudderless.  Then the room sharpened, as though he were watching it through a bright crystal microscope that made it grow present and vivid.  And, slowly at first, the morning gained that same remarkable clarity, and then the flight of the evening before; and then the Veil spell and the month spent creating it, and Voldemort's attack on Hogwarts, and his own dizzying, expanding friendship with Harry, in reverse; and his first meeting with Voldemort and on until the impressions were racing past him with impossible speed.

He coughed again – no wonder people flinched and trembled when they were administered Veritaserum, if everyone's experience was like his.

He looked up at Severus and blinked, the details resolving so plainly he wondered how he could have missed them, before:

Severus was nearly a stone lighter than he'd been when drinking their newly-developed Potion, his skin several shades paler.  They'd all been out in the hills of Scotland for days collecting important Potions ingredients that simply had to be collected on this day or that; or, in one case, had to be _local_ to anchor the portal best.  This man's hair was also four-point-two-five centimeters longer than it had been two days ago.

"Who are you?"

For a moment, Draco thought the question had emerged from his own lips, but then the room before him fizzled, popped and resolved into Snape leaning over him and looking expectant.

 _What?_ But, "Draco Lucius Malfoy," he replied without any intention of answering so directly.  He realized that Severus must have lifted the _Impedimenta_ while he was still reeling from the initial effects of the Veritaserum, because he was slumped slightly forward, in a position so relaxed that he likely could never have managed it without chemical aid.

"How long has that been your name?"

That was a pretty clever way of seeing if – "…all my life," he answered.

Severus appeared stymied for a moment; but then he wandered off again.  Perhaps he had decided the potion hadn't had time to work, or was faulty.

"You shouldn't administer any more Veritaserum," Draco called after him, the faint edge of panic swimming up at this last idea, and Severus paused with one hand on the doorframe.  "The side-effects include nerve damage and permanent memory loss."

The wizard turned.  "Who told you that?"

"You did," Draco replied.  "On three separate occasions, if you count the exam you gave in fifth-year.  Also, my father, once."

Severus returned to his side.  "Are you or are you not the Draco Lucius Malfoy who stood with me atop the Astronomy Tower last night?"

"I don't believe I am."

There was a moment of quiet while Severus lowered his head and clenched his fists.  Then he nodded, once, sharply.  "Where were you last night if not accomplishing the task you had been given?"

"I _was_ accomplishing the task I had been given.  I was in the Potions classroom chopping ashwagandha."

"Elaborate."

Apparently, Veritaserum _could_ work with such a vague query, because Draco found himself expounding on Arithmetical and Potions theory for a solid one minute and thirty-nine-point-eight seconds before Severus cut him off.

"Repeat your previous sentence?"

" 'Hermione says that Bezhinghast's theory of caudular bases is self-contradicting'," Draco parroted.

" _Hermione says_ ," Snape repeated, venom lacing his voice.  "Are you referring to Miss Granger?"

"Yes.  There are no other Hermiones I know.  Nor books I've read that were written by any Hermiones –"

"Am I to understand that you and Miss Granger have been working on a _Unified Theory of Reality-Transversal…_ together?" Snape bit off.

"Yes," Draco replied.  He hadn't thought of it that way before, but of course that was the case.

"And that's how you got here," Snape said, releasing a huge puff of air.

"Yes," Draco said, the response leaving him with his own huff of surprised realization.

Severus strode to the window that looked out over the ruined rose gardens, hands clasped behind his back, shoulders rolled forward.  "Where is Draco?"

"The other Draco Malfoy was running through the Hogwarts front entrance the last I saw of him.  We didn't recognize him at the time; it was dark, and he was quick.  But he had Malfoy hair."

"You said 'we'.  Who else accompanied you?"

"Ron."

"Ronald Weasley."  There was a faint drip of horror to Severus's voice, now.

"I don't know any other Rons," Draco explained.

"I assume that in your strange and sordid little universe, Hermione Granger is a pureblood of high standing and Ronald Weasley is a Slytherin," he spat derisively; and even though Draco's higher faculties could tell that this had been a rhetorical statement rather than a proper question, he could not seem to stop answering anyway.

"Ron was Sorted to Hufflepuff, but the Hat willfully mis-Sorted him to Gryffindor," he babbled.  "Hermione Granger is a Mu – a Mu –"  He stopped, laughed.  "I still can't say it, so – _Muggleborn_."

"Is there a reason for your reticence?  Veritaserum should destroy all barriers."

Draco blinked.  "Not stronger compulsions.  Harry ordered me not to."

There was a dangerous quiet, and Severus strode back to crouch before Draco's chair. " _Potter.  Did.  What?_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Think this will be updated Mondays and Wednesdays. Shoot me a note about what you think so far!
> 
> -K


	3. Chapter 3

"I do not understand.  How does Harry Potter command you?" Snape growled, rising from his crouch and turning to pace across the floor.

"He cast _Imperio_ ," Draco began.

" – and the first thing he did was order you not to use the word Mudblood," Snape parried, brows raised.

Draco took a shaky breath, ready to explain, but "no," emerged regardless of his will in the matter.  Veritaserum had him replying with directness rather than complexity.  "The first thing he ordered me to do was shut up."

Snape issued a snort that sounded a great deal like an aborted laugh turned groan.  "The perfect idiot, to waste such an opportunity.  What were his subsequent orders?"

"To not be such a git.  To stop calling him 'Master'.  To 'answer me, Draco'.  'Draco: be good'.  'Draco: be nice' –"

"It sounds as though he had a great deal of fun at your expense," Snape interrupted, lip curled.  "What a fool."

It was not clear to which of the two boys he was referring.

Draco felt instinctive indignation and shame clutch at his throat, but Severus hadn't asked a question so he wasn't required to answer at all.  In any case, he wasn't certain what to say to such an assertion, so he elaborated on his initial statement.  "Potter is a quick thinker with a strong personality who is highly skilled in the Mental Arts.  The Dark Lord meant for the _Imperio_ to form a mental connection."

Severus paused and then sank heavily to slump on the bed.  "And this was… successful?"

"Yes," Draco replied, swallowing.

"Elaborate."

Draco's breath came in little huffs.  If pressed, he would have said that he'd rather undergo Cruciatus than discuss his relationship with Potter.  He struggled against the compulsion harder than ever, but the _Veritaserum_ on overdose was a monster he couldn't wrestle, not with all the will in the world.  "His mind rose up to cover mine, like a tidal wave, and it was frightening at first, but then it became – I don't want to, I don't want to say – comforting, and being around him felt good.  His approval felt better, and I hated it and at the same time wanted it so badly – began to wonder if it hadn't really been that way all along, me just wanting him to notice so bad I'd do anything to make him sit up and listen."

"Typical of the entanglement," Snape replied, his coal-black eyes on Draco's.  "One comes to believe that he has always wished to obey the Caster."

Draco felt himself flush, but he'd read the same books as Snape, knew the same stories.  Something at the heart of him pulsed _not right, not right_ , but he knew it was Harry's hand reaching out and twisting, from Merlin-knew how far.  "He didn't mean it," he heard himself continue.  "He's Muggle-raised, he doesn't even know about the effects of the Unforgivables."

"Grasping at excuses for your attacker," the dark-eyed man observed, disinterested.  "Also very common.  Presumably he didn't mean to cast Imperius, either."

"I pushed him to do it!" Draco shouted, fury swimming up through Veriatserum's haze.  "It was the _job_ he gave me, aren't you listening, Voldemort _told_ me to –"

" _The Dark Lord_ ," Professor Snape corrected, voice chill.  "I assume your master taught you to eschew such formalities?"

"No!" Draco growled, anger layering over a deep and tremoring thread of fear.  "I started on that myself, _me_ , he didn't – you don't understand!"

Snape crouched then, settling back on his haunches and searching Draco's panicked grey eyes with his own.  "Oh, but I believe I do, Mister Malfoy," he replied, voice low and sure in a way that made Draco's spine chill.  "I believe I understand far better than you.  You are laboring under a... misapprehension.  I have within my power to remove it."

Draco's foreboding shifted into a wary certainty.  "Remove _what_?" he demanded, attempting to inject some of his old sense of command.  When the strident query emerged as a squeak, he winced.

"Your connection to Potter, of course," Snape replied sneeringly.  "I assure you, you will thank me once you are free of it."

"I won't," Draco asserted.  "Professor, please, you don't know what you're doing."

Snape looked at him with sorrowful scorn.  "Draco," the lank-haired man whispered, eyes going soft, "in a moment you'll be so ashamed you'll wish you'd never been born."

The pain was worse than Harry's reflected _Obscura_ , Draco thought, biting back on his screams.  It felt like the inversion of _Obscura_ , as though something vital and living and essential was being ripped away, like a tree yanked free at the root.  Draco finally made the conscious decision to allow himself to scream, only to realize that the horrific sound all around him meant he already was.  He could only hope, he thought with a stab of venomous satisfaction, that Narcissa would burst through the door and cast the Killing Curse at this strange mirror-reflection of Professor Snape.  But then he remembered _Silencio Perispherico_ and – and –

_No._

Images flashed past Draco.  The Remembrall incident, the Inquisitorial Squad, _scared, Potter?_ , his small, white hand outstretched to Harry's on the Hogwarts Express first year.  All those shining filaments that joined the two that night in the Hospital Wing as Harry accepted Draco's Wizard's Debt strained and snapped under the pressure of Professor Snape's Legilimency.

Draco cried out and struggled more than he thought he could have managed only a year ago, fueled by adrenaline and despair, but Snape evaded when necessary, his mind darting to and from Draco's, unpredictable as a swaying cobra.  And so one by one, the silvery cords in Draco's mind floated free.

And as they did, Draco found that the events of the last year were taking on a different color.  Suddenly his actions began to seem foreign – as though he hadn't actually been present for his conversations with Harry, but had heard about them second-hand.  His mind felt aching with the loss, sore and empty like the socket left by a pulled tooth.

" – aco," Snape was murmuring, swiping Draco's sweat-damp hair away from his eyes with one, long finger.  He could feel the ropes unwinding, blood returning to his oxygen-starved limbs.  He could feel himself being lifted, and set into bed, the lights dimmed.  He could hear the door close, wards incanted around it.

Draco blinked up at the ceiling, where slashes of daylight played against a backdrop of shadow.  The birds singing outside told him it was early morning; he could feel the pleasant chill of it right through his covers.  For a long moment, he was not entirely certain where he was; his stomach rumbled, and he thought longingly of scrambled eggs and shepherd's pie in the Great Hall.

Then memory slammed down, and Draco couldn't breathe around its weight.  Panicking, he reached out for that tenuous thread of connection… it was grasping for Harry at Malfoy Manor in the dead of night, desperate and sick with it, fingers closing on empty air.  The sour taste at the back of his throat felt like sick betrayal, and he wasn't sure who he was angriest with – Snape, or Potter, or himself for feeling the loss so keenly.

Standing was more difficult than it should have been.  For a long moment he stared at the bed as pure despair threatened to claim him – returning to the bed and throwing the covers over his aching skull seemed the _only_ option for a dark moment, all other avenues eclipsed by his exhaustion.

Draco moved to the bathing room off of his suite and splashed his face with icy water, then pinched his cheeks until they took on a semblance of color.  Then he sat on the edge of his bed, determined to think out his plan of attack.  With such a cagey Snape, he would have to be even more careful of his every action.

A knock at the door startled him back into alertness.  With an icy shock, Draco realized he hadn't been thinking at all, only staring at the blue-painted walls.

His mother was at the door, hair all spun gold and smiling cheerfully in a rose-coloured gown.  With a leap of joy too-soon smothered in the morass of wretchedness he felt, he realized his very return had already done her a world of good.  "Draco!" she exclaimed, clasping both of his hands in hers.  "You're awake.  I'm sure you were very exhausted.  How do you feel now?"

"Well," he replied, surprised at how even and sane his voice sounded.  "Tired," he amended, when her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed.

"There's breakfast downstairs," Narcissa offered with an eager smile.  "All your favorites."

Draco's stomach flipped unpleasantly.  "Thank-you, mother.  I shall be down shortly."

Narcissa smiled and nodded and practically bobbed in place before finally exiting.

Draco slumped.  The effort of behaving normally had been exhausting.

He stood in front of the mirror a few more moments, schooling his features.  He could not manage the warmth he'd felt towards his mother last night, so he settled for his default aloofness.  When he felt his features were set, he took a bracing breath and emerged from his rooms.

Seeing Snape seated at his breakfast table, eating kippers as though nothing whatsoever had happened almost undid all of Draco's careful reserve.  A surge of fury and terror swept through him dragonsfire hot, followed by a flash of stultifying cold that made him shudder.

That was leagues better than the emptiness he'd felt, but nothing would be gained from Snape by way of nervous breakdown; so Draco smoothed his expression again and approached the rosewood table, seating himself across from the professor.

The House Elves had gone all-out for Draco's homecoming.  Every dish he enjoyed had been set on the little table until it groaned under the weight, from home-made scones and fresh raspberry jam, to eggs, to fresh fruit, to the French sausage he'd acquired a taste for in a summer holiday to Nice.  He could only assume that the kippers were for Snape's benefit; he hated the nasty, oily things.

In order to avoid making eye contact with Snape, Draco widened his gaze to Malfoy Manor as a whole, with its cathedral ceilings and baroque furniture and tasteful decorations.  In many ways, sitting in the sunlight-filled informal dining room was like a return to childhood, and therefore obliquely comforting; but it was also more than a little strange, this resumption of all the little rituals he'd outgrown, like a dream of the past that refused to dissolve on waking. 

Draco's mother entered from the kitchen and offered him a wavering smile.  "Draco!  There you are!"  Her eyes traveled from his face to his plate as she circled the table.

Narcissa Malfoy did not need words to make a point, Draco reflected as he immediately reached for the bowl of fruit salad, exquisitely arranged, to serve himself; then, he stood with Severus as she reached her chair.  When Narcissa had seated herself, the men followed suit.

Draco stabbed a blueberry with extreme prejudice, thinking.  Ron would say to suck it up until he could have it out with Snape properly, and alone.  For all of his modern ideas, Ron was old fashioned when it came to women, and he wouldn't believe it was right for Narcissa to witness the knock-down, drag-out fight that would result if Draco said half of what he were thinking about the older wizard.  Hermione would tell him to sit tight until someone in authority could come and help him.  She might advise him to do research, too, on dimensions - realities.

Harry would -

He realized with a start that he wasn't really sure.

"Draco..." Narcissa began, delicately.

Draco looked at the mess he'd made of his fruit and took a scone with a certain rebellious air.  If his mother wished for them to play happy family, he was willing to soothe her clearly agitated nerves for so long as he could manage, but he knew he was no Severus Snape.  His feelings could only be masked to such a degree, and for only so long before the façade crumbled.  Just then, he didn't trust himself to reply.

"Severus has informed me of your... troubles last evening.  I know what Severus did to you last night must've hurt.  And you must know how sorry I am that we were not able to protect you better."

He jerked his head up from his plate to stare across the table at Snape, who returned his wide-eyed surprise with an entirely blank expression.  When Draco's gaze flickered back to his mother, her brow was furrowed, and her lower lip trembled.

He could scarcely credit it, but Snape had told her everything: and she'd _agreed he was right_ , at least provisionally, or Snape wouldn't be eating kippers at their breakfast table.

"Protect me from what, precisely?" Draco finally said, when he trusted his voice to remain as acerbic and curt as he intended.

"From enchantment, obviously," Severus broke in coldly.

Snape believed he was saving Narcissa, Draco realized.  Saving her again.  "Harry and I made that pact together," Draco stated, quite calmly, he thought, for the circumstances.  "You had no right to dissolve a contract I'd made with another wizard."

"You still believe this enchantment to have been voluntary?" Severus hissed, leaning forward across the table and towards Draco.  There was that spark of wildness in his eyes again, the one Draco now knew he buried under layers of bile.  "Need I remind you how much you despised Harry Potter your entire boyhood?  You woke up one morning enamoured of him and you suppose it _chance_?"

 _Enamoured!_ Draco's mind chittered, but of course it was true - the enamoured part, anyway, even if it made him sound like a schoolgirl with a crush.  He speared a tiny piece of persimmon and placed it in his mouth to give him time to think.

"Severus," Narcissa chided, placing a gentle hand on the inside of his arm.

Draco watched as Severus relaxed an inch under the press of her touch and suppressed the urge to roll his eyes with every fiber of his being; he managed, just.  "I told you under a preposterous dose of Veritaserum just that," Draco replied.  "And when you simplify any relationship to such a degree, of course it comes across as ridiculous.  I could just as well say that you awoke one morning and decided that your relationship with the Headmaster was at a very final end.  Such a statement would be equally specious."

Snape's expression hardened, but he otherwise ignored the jibe.  "There is only one way someone could tell a falsehood while under Veritaserum."

And that was really rather carefully said, for Severus Snape, Draco reflected, spearing and swallowing a raspberry; it wasn't every day he was accused of being completely deranged to his face.

After he'd chewed, and swallowed, he placed his fork across his plate with a gentle _clink_.  "So: you suppose that the Dark Lord being back from the dead was enough to unhinge me?  Or perhaps it was the death of the Headmaster."  He stopped, then, because he felt that if he kept his mouth open, hysterical babble was in his future, and that did not bode well for the success of his argument.

"No, Draco!" Narcissa exclaimed.  "We don't believe you've lost your mind."

Draco's eyes snapped over to Snape, who had his hands folded on the table, his plate pushed away.  He looked a little white around the mouth, as though Draco had succeeded in shocking him.  "I meant to say that the only way to fool Veritaserum," Snape went on, as though he were merely clarifying a salient point, "is for the victim to himself believe that he is conveying accurate information."

"What Severus is trying to say is that we don't believe you're mad," Narcissa rushed in.  "We believe it is the enchantment itself that is at fault."

"Enchantment?" Draco echoed weakly.  "So you're saying that Harry enchanted me to, to _love_ him, and then enchanted me to believe my life had gone entirely differently than you both suppose.  Even assuming Potter had the ability to do such a thing, why on earth should he attempt the latter?"  He noted with a vicious little stab of pleasure that both Narcissa and Severus had startled on the word _love_.  _Let them fret themselves into oblivion_ , he thought.

"I believe it is the same curse rather than two separate enchantments," Severus said, "and that one feeds into the other."

"So if you broke one then, you ought to have broken the other," Draco snapped.

Both looked uncomfortable at this pronouncement, and Draco knew he was right.

"How do you feel now, when you think of Mister Potter?" Snape queried, rather than answer the implicit question.

Draco saw no harm in answering honestly.  "It feels like I went to bed and woke up someone else, such a large part of who I was is missing.  I don't know how to feel."

Narcissa reached out to unfold his hand from its deathgrip on her rosewood chairs, and Draco was about to snap out an apology for taking his frustration out on the thousand-Galleon furniture when he realized she was offering comfort instead of reprimand.

"How long, in your mind, have you been friends with Mister Potter?" Snape queried.

"Probably since we played chess that first time, though I wouldn't've admitted it then.  Almost a year, I suppose."

"Chess?" Snape inquired neutrally.

Draco snorted.  "Harry's bollocks at it - er - sorry, mother."

"You sounded like Ronald Weasley just then," Snape continued.  "You have done so, off and on; you've picked up traces of his accent, and it's altered the way you say certain words entirely.  How long have you been intimate with Mister Weasley?"

Draco snorted at Snape's phrasing.  "Less time than with Harry," Draco replied.  "But Ron -"  Draco wasn't sure how to say that Ron had appeared in his life after the Mark had seared into his skin, and made him feel like a human being again; the way that Ron had refused to treat him differently than any mate in Hospital over a Quidditch injury.  The way Ron kept on visiting, even when Hermione was too prudent to come, and Harry too angry.

"Then there are several enchantments, each layered atop the other," Severus diagnosed.  "We will have to remove them all, if we wish to return Draco to his original state."

The stab of sheer panic took even Draco by surprise, so that he'd stood, his chair overturned, before Snape could so much as blink.  No part of his connection to Ron was magical, and Merlin knew what might happen if Severus were attempt to use magic to destroy it.  He framed himself in the doorway, one hand pressed firm against the frame for support.  " _You're not taking anyone else,_ " he said, and his voice cracked around the words.

Narcissa dabbed at her mouth with a napkin and kept very upright in her chair, turning worried eyes on him.  "Don't you see, Draco?" she implored.  "Whoever cast this enchantment manipulated it - manipulated _you_ \- so that, were it to begin to unravel, you would fight back.  Surely you can understand the logic of such a contrivance."

"I'm finished talking now," Draco said clearly.  He turned to address Severus: "I only followed you so far because I worried you'd lost your mind, talking about the Dark Lord as though he were still alive.  That, and Ron told me to look after you," he tacked on, and was gratified by the look of shock intermingled with disgust on Snape's face.  "Now: I'm going back to Hogwarts."

"No!"

Severus and Draco turned to stare at Narcissa, who had clapped one white hand over her mouth.  She lowered it to her lap, where Draco could see it still shook.

"Mother?"

Narcissa did not rise to approach him, but some of the ice melted from her gaze as she stared across the room.  "Darling, you are slated to see the Dark Lord tonight, he informed me by owl, I didn't want to say anything until we'd spoken about - the other thing.  If you run, he will follow you.  You would not reach Hogwarts," she added on viewing his most stubborn expression.  "I'm sorry," she added, just before Draco heard " _STUPEFY!_ " and his vision went black.

When he woke again, he had been laid out in the Blue Room, and it was early evening.  Snape was perched on the corner of the bed, staring out of the window, where the sky was painted with the pinks and purples and golds of early sunset.

Draco made use of the moments before Severus noticed him to take stock of the situation.  He could try to overcome Severus physically, but he had a feeling it couldn't end well, especially since he was hampered by the covers, anchored by the other man's weight on one end.

But if it came to it, he would fight.  _We are all a little Gryffindor in the right circumstances_ , he thought, steeling himself for the inevitable confrontation.  _And I'm a Gryffindor in_ extremis _._

But when Snape's gaze finally turned to the bed, his eyes were as grim as Narcissa's.

"Draco," he greeted, gravely, and Draco deflated.  Here was the man who'd been tortured because of him - the man who had refused to take revenge afterwards, who'd given him his second chance.

"You can't take the last year from me," Draco asserted.  "I won't let you."

"I have discerned that," Snape replied.  "You truly believe that you care for these people."

And though before, Draco had used the word _love_ to shock Snape and his mother, _care_ sounded weighty and formal on Snape's tongue.  "They're important to me," he said.  He knew it was vital to avoid the appearance of concession to the other wizard.  "Which is why I can't let you take them away."

"Then let me set your mind at ease, Draco: I do not plan on trying."

Draco struggled against the blankets to sit up.

"The Dark Lord arrives tonight," Snape went on.  "If all goes well, you shall return to Hogwarts forthwith."

"But - how?"

"You will leave that to me," Snape ordered.  "And do not act surprised."

 _Surprised?_   "You won't -"

"No, for the second and last time." Severus paused, and when he next spoke, Draco got the impression he was carefully considering every word.  "My vow was to protect your life, Draco, and so I shall do whatever places you in the least danger.  Right now, that is sending you back to Hogwarts with your faulty memories intact."

Draco took in and released a shaky breath.

"Smarten yourself up," Snape ordered, standing.  "And if you should choose to run to Hogwarts to your new friends before you meet with the Dark Lord, you shall doom all three of us."  He slowly placed Draco's wand on the dressing-room table and exited the room without looking back - no ward on the door or windows - no _Incarcerus_.  Draco was free to go, so long as he no longer valued his own life or the life of his mother.

Draco stood and made his way to the mirror.  He looked as though he'd been run over by a hippogriff: hair askew, dark smudges under his eyes, clothing rumpled.  He took a shower, letting the hot water relax his muscles, and groomed himself meticulously: hair slicked down, every button in place.

Then, there was nothing to do but wait.  A House Elf had been in and out: the bed was made up, and there was a bowl of cold cucumber soup with fresh bread awaiting him.

He supposed he had better eat it.  He'd only had a bit of fruit and scone today, though he'd spent most of the day unconscious.  He had only barely touched the soup, though, when Pliny popped into the room.

"Young Master!" he exclaimed, quivering from head to toe.  "Mistress is asking Pliny to tell you to come downstairs immediately!"

"Is he here, Pliny?" Draco stood, setting the soup down slowly so as not to reveal his own trembling.

"Yes!" Pliny whispered.  "Yes, Young Master!  He is here!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like updates are Mondays and Wednesdays, folks. Or thereabouts. ;)
> 
> Comments are always appreciated! I like to hear what people are thinking as they read.
> 
> -K


	4. Chapter 4

Draco nodded and wiped at his mouth.  He cast a quick tooth-scrubbing charm and, checking himself one last moment in the glass, descended the stairs.

Draco refused to shake, ordered himself not to tremble - placed himself somewhere remote, gathering ingredients for Potions.  Pictured Harry with him, and when that did not seem to help, Hermione and Ron - flanking him on either side.  But the picture of the Dark Lord searing the Mark into his flesh kept intruding, shoving aside his attempts at calm.

He forced the trembling inward until he was clanging and vibrating underneath his skin, until Draco felt he would shatter apart from the force of it.  His mother met him at the base of the stairs, and he offered her his arm; they walked, sedately, to meet the Dark Lord.

Draco was proud of his mother in that moment.  She walked with her chin hitched up, as though she smelled something rather foul in the house - just enough to indicate disapproval and not enough to give insult.  The rest of her expression was remote but serene, as though she contemplated icy mountains in the distance.  He loved her so much in that moment that the worst of the vibrations dissipated, and he found himself capable of leading her forward to the ballroom.

Of course, Voldemort would have chosen to hold court in the Manor's ballroom, with its intimidatingly high ceilings and the throne-like chairs in which he, his father and his mother sat when they threw a soiree.  Every curve in the room led straight to those chairs, pulling the eye forward.

Draco squeezed his mother's arm tighter for one, brief instant and then entered.

Voldemort was seated just where he'd expected, but the other two chairs lay in ruins, and no one had bothered to sweep away the pieces.  At Voldemort's side crouched Fenrir Greyback in bloodstained rags, and at his other side stood Draco's aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange.

His aunt was worth a moment's contemplation.  Her dark hair was a rat's nest, and her fine dress was torn at the neck, though she had to have had lots of opportunities to 'borrow' from his mother, who was only slightly shorter than her sister and shared the same, pale grace.  He wondered if she were attempting to emphasize her madness, or at least refusing to hide it.  She smiled at him widely, wickedly, and licked her lips.

He was pretty sure he didn't want to know what she meant by it.

It was only then that he saw Severus, standing a bit back and to the side, closer to Bellatrix than to Greyback.  Though that only made sense: between the choice of someone who might take it in her mind to curse you for no reason at all, and someone who might choose to _eat_ you for no reason at all, he knew where he would stand.

"Mistress Malfoy," the Dark Lord intoned, "young Mister Malfoy.  Welcome," which was rich, given that he had taken over their very own ballroom.

Narcissa inclined her head a fraction of an inch; Draco executed the bow of a young man introduced to an elder for the first time, trying to convince himself that he did not care whether he lived or died.

"Very pretty," Bellatrix whispered.  "Pretty, pretty, pretty little boy."

Draco looked at her and inclined his own head a jot, as though his aunt's greeting had been perfectly proper, because he thought ignoring her would be worse trouble than not.  When she giggled, delighted, he wasn't sure he'd made the right choice.

"Oh, he _is_ lovely," Bellatrix added, leaning closer to the _thing_ in Lucius's seat, as though imparting a confidence.

Greyback looked bored.

"I understand you are a compatriot of Harry Potter's," Voldemort observed.

Draco couldn't help the small flinch at that, and he felt his mother's arm convulse, drawing him a few centimeters closer to her.  Snape, however, gave a quick, tight nod behind the Dark Lord.

 _Yes?_ Draco thought, bewildered.  ' _Yes', are you joking?_

Another tight nod, this one over to Voldemort, whose snake-like mouth was twitched up in one direction.

Something was _funny_ , apparently.

"Yes, my lord?" Draco squeaked.

The Dark Lord began to laugh, followed by Greyback's huffing guffaws, which sounded almost like the growling of a dog, and Bellatrix's hysterical high cackle.

The Dark Lord waved a hand, and the laughter died down.  "You would give your life for him, is that right?"

Again, Snape silently urged him to agree.

Draco bowed his head in thought.  Severus had told him to play along, but this was ridiculous.  _Yes, my lord, and I'd kill you without a second thought, if I could.  I'd stab my sweet and loving aunt in the eye, I'd cast the Killing Curse on that bag of fleas over there.  I'd end this now, if I only had the power.  So please, feel free to cast the Killing Curse at any time; I am a turncoat, a betrayer; I am an ex-Death Eater._

But then there was Severus, whom he trusted implicitly - had trusted - and to whom he still owed his life.  _Merlin_.  He looked into the eyes of Voldemort, Lord of Death and nodded.  " _Yes_ ," he hissed, between clenched teeth.

"Severus, but this is truly impressive," Voldemort said, addressing the Potions Master for the first time.  "How on earth did you manage?"

Severus came forward, head bent and entire posture subservient.  "Through a sister technique to Occlumency and Legilimency; I have not yet given it name, my lord."

One of the pieces suddenly clicked into place.  Snape was pretending that it was he who had cursed Draco to be on Harry's side, though Draco could not yet fathom how this would be of help to them.

"Incredible," Voldemort murmured, staring at Draco as though he were some sort of experiment under the glass - which he supposed, according to Severus's lies, he was.  "Now, Severus, you must understand, I cannot simply take your word for it.  What if the boy were lying to protect you?"

Severus did not shake his head or look up, or even move from his supremely submissive position, as though he were not worthy enough to look the Dark Lord in the face; but Draco saw him stiffen.  "I assure you, my lord, he is not.  The boy harbors warm feelings towards me - he must, in order to ensure that he will return to me, once his mission at Hogwarts is complete - but when he says that he loves Harry Potter, he is entirely in earnest."

"We shall see," Voldemort said.  "Approach."

Draco pried his mother's fingers from his arm, where they left white marks that would bruise.

Voldemort noted her fear and smiled.  "Be easy, Mistress Malfoy.  You shall have him returned to you undamaged - more or less - and, I daresay, much as you remember him, once all is said and done."

Draco reached his father's chair and stood, untrembling, at its foot.  Harry had been tortured by Voldemort; Severus had.  _It's only fair; it's my turn, after all_.  Draco was laughing at death, and he knew it.  He supposed it was what one did when there was nothing else to be done.

Voldemort leaned forward in his chair until his face was mere inches from Draco's.  His breath was foetid with the faint scent of decay, his skin unnaturally shiny and pale, his hands like claws.  The only thing that held Draco there, the only thing that could, was Severus ahead of him and his mother behind him, their lives standing on his absolute obedience.

Draco swallowed when the Dark Lord's red eyes met his, but he held.  He thought he felt something very strange: a slimy, oily presence moving throughout his mind, leaving something slick behind, like a slug leaving its trail.  He found events unspooling from his mind the way they had when Severus cut his connections to Harry, but there was no doubt that Voldemort's Legilimency was subtler and cleverer than Snape's.

After an endless, painless moment, Voldemort drew back, his expression registering surprise.  For a moment, he whispered to Bellatrix, who frowned fretfully, like a child deprived of a sweet.  Then her features lit up in a bright grin, and she nodded.  There was some more careful whispering, and Voldemort turned to face Draco once more.

"Severus, you have done well."

"Thank you, my lord.  I live only to serve you."

"And while normally I frown on initiative, you are clever enough and skilled enough that I tend to... enjoy it... when you do."

"You flatter me, my lord."

"Hardly.  Needless to say, we shall return him to Hogwarts as soon as it can be arranged."

Narcissa let off a ragged gasp behind him.

 _Keep it together, mother,_ Draco thought to her, with all his might, as though wishing would make it so.  _We are, inexplicably, almost clear of him._

"Nevertheless... such a... _friend_ to Harry Potter couldn't escape unscathed."

"It would look suspicious," Fenrir commented idly, cleaning something unmentionable out from underneath his nails.  He looked up and his yellow eyes flashed.  "Perhaps if he were to return with... a limb missing."

Draco's mother made a fretful noise, which drew Greyback's attention.  "Not an important one," he consoled, eyes wide.  "A hand.  Anyone can do without a hand.  Peter's done just fine without a hand."

Draco didn't move or say a word, mostly because he was terrified, but also because he had the firm and rather unfounded belief that Snape would stop him from losing a hand.

"Nothing so vulgar," Voldemort replied out of the corner of his mouth, red eyes still trained on Draco.  "Bella?"

Bellatrix Lestrange looked up, eyes hooded.  "This will be _such fun_ ," she growled.

"No!  Sister!" Narcissa exclaimed.  "Please, don't do anything you'll regret.  He's your own flesh and blood."

Severus pressed his eyes shut, but Voldemort appeared to be in a cheery frame of mind.  "She's only protecting her son," he said kindly.  Then, he turned to Narcissa.  "I've told you already he will not be greatly harmed.  If he's to grow to become a man in my service, he must learn hardship.  All great men have experienced terrible things."

"I - forgive me, my lord," Narcissa recanted, with a deep obeisance.  "You are right, of course.  You are always right, if I only pause to consider your words.  I spoke without thinking."

"Very well said," he replied, and Draco was struck with the odd impression that Narcissa had somehow _endeared_ herself to Voldemort, that he _liked_ her and often felt inclined to be indulgent with her.  "If you do not wish to witness it, I do understand."

His mother gave him one last, desperate look and stepped back.  "Nevertheless, my lord, I shall stay, if it pleases you."

Voldemort inclined his head and it seemed to Draco that he was impressed with her.  He gestured Bellatrix forward and Draco retreated until he was on level ground.  If he were to fall, he wanted to avoid falling down the stairs that led up the to dais.

The madwoman's eyes lit with delight as she drew her wand, a twisted walnut monstrosity.  "Prepare yourself, little one," she whispered.  " _CRUCIO!_ "

The pain was incredible.  Draco dropped immediately to his knees, curving his body as though he could curl around the hurt.

"Very good," Bellatrix intoned, circling him with her wand raised.  "You barely cried out, but..."  She leaned close to him, close enough so that her mad eyes filled his vision, and through the tear in the neck of her dress he glimpsed a flash of gold.  "...that was also, my dear, _barely_ a taste.  _CRUCIO!_ "

By Merlin, it was _worse_ , she was building up a head of steam.  Draco could see Voldemort looking on proudly, as though Bellatrix were a favored child displaying her most precocious talent.  Greyback continued to look mostly bored.

Draco found Snape's eyes and latched on.

" _CRUCIO_!"

He squeezed them shut, but when he opened his eyes again, Severus was still looking at him, and even though his expression remained blank, there was a tightness around his eyes, as though he were the one in pain.

" _CRUCIO!_ "

Merlin, he couldn't stop twitching after that one.  He remembered something in his Defense textbook about permanent nerve damage - when you didn't go mad, that was.  Between this and the Veritaserum he might very well -

" _CRUCIO!_ "

He only needed to get through this to get to Hogwarts.  He just needed to get there, because then there would be Ron and Hermione and of course Harry, though it wasn't funny the way his name used to come first in that list and now always followed last.

" _CRUCIO!_ "

But what was really happening?  He hadn't had much time to think about it, because everything was happening so fast, but what if Severus was right and the whole thing was a curse?  But Ron - no, Ron'd been with him, they'd - they'd _seen_ the other Malfoy, at least for an instant.  But maybe it'd just been some other boy with pale hair, maybe when he got back to Hogwarts, Harry'd look at him with blank eyes, and Hermione's hair would still be long, and -

" _CRUCIO!_ "

\- and - what'd he been thinking?  Something about hair.  Hermione'd cut her hair because he was wearing Muggle clothes, but that didn't make any sense, really.  He didn't wear Muggle clothing, because it was - it was _common_.  But - he was so tired, he wanted to go to sleep, why did his aunt keep bothering him?  "Are you _done_?" he whispered, but probably not loud enough for anyone to hear.

" _CRUCIO!_ "

...what was He-Who-Must-Be-Ashamed doing up there, anyway?  "I killed you," he thought, or - well - _said_ , actually, was the proper word.  So he couldn't be Voldemort, because he'd killed Voldemort, and so Voldemort was dead.  Because he'd killed him.  For Hermione, who was a Muggleborn and also common.  Also very uncommon, though he'd never tell her so.  So maybe it was someone playing at being Voldemort, like Smythe and Ralston, who'd shown up at the end-of-year Slytherin party dressed as Death Eaters.  "In terribly poor taste," he commented, to no-one.

" _CRUCIO!_ "

He was back home, for some reason, but he'd never wanted to come back, not since his mother wasn't around.  The only reason he would've ever returned would have been to please her, after Lucius'd died, after he'd bloody well left and then his mum had too, of course, because no one wanted him.  He was valued but not wanted, he was an important heir - back to hair again, inexplicably.

"Enough," Voldemort said, with a lazy wave of his wand.

Bellatrix paused, lips parted to emit another Cruciatus, and slumped, pouting, her fingers worrying at a chain around her neck.

"There will be plenty of games later, my dear," Voldemort soothed her.  "We wouldn't want to drive the boy entirely mad.  You can tell from the look in his eye, he barely knows where he is."

Draco found that insulting, because he knew perfectly well where he was: home, only not, and he was pretty proud of the fact that he was still capable of abstract thought by this point.

"My lord?"

Voldemort nodded to Severus, who swept Draco's arm over his shoulder and the next thing he knew, he, his mother and Severus were in the Blue Room.  Severus waved his wand and a cart containing several potions bottles appeared.  He waved his wand again and a burner and three cauldrons of various sizes appeared, and a table appeared an instant later below them, so that they rattled.  He waved his wand a third time and what looked like the Manor's entire potions stores appeared in a cabinet against the wall.  He had to have planned all that out beforehand, Draco thought hazily.

"That's... very... thoughtful," he stammered, and Severus and Narcissa turned to him in an instant.

He got the sudden impression he'd been talking before, and that not all of it had made sense.

Suddenly, he was in his mother's arms, and she was crying in a way he hadn't ever heard anyone weep - deep, gut-wrenching sobs.  "Oh Merlin!" she wailed, over and over, and her body shook fiercely.  It was so unlike her that he was afraid it was she who'd lost her mind.  And then Severus was there too, and the three of them clung, all shaking from Draco's shaking, with all of the elated and incredulous feeling of three people having very nearly escaped death.

Eventually, they moved to the bed and Draco trembled beneath the covers.  Narcissa curled atop the covers beside him, stroking his hair.  "My brave, brave boy!" she exclaimed proudly, which was the first she'd said since "oh, Merlin!", and which Draco liked to think of as a good sign.

"You did very well," Severus added, which was as good as an Order of Merlin, First Class, from anyone else.  "Now open up."

Draco opened his mouth obediently, but his trembling mouth clacked his teeth against the spoon.

Immediately, he started to feel a bit more settled.  "I'm all right," he proclaimed.

"Very well, we'll leave you to your own devices, then!" Severus shouted, and Draco suddenly realized that Severus was white and trembling, too.  Without another sign or any explanation, the wizard's legs gave out and he fell back into a chair, pulling a hand down his face.  "I apologize," he muttered.  "It's the first of my students who - not that it really should matter - they were all young, once."

Narcissa rose and wrapped Snape in her arms again, but he pushed her gently away.  "Thank you, Narcissa," he said, and looked like he really meant it, "but we've got to get some more potions into your son, or he may suffer permanent damage."

"Then tell me what to do," she ordered, chin lifting again into that stubborn set Draco knew so well from looking in the mirror.  "I'm feeling well, now."

When Severus looked up at her, his features went slack with exhaustion and gratitude.  "The green bottle, there," he said, pointing, and she fetched it, measured out the amount he dictated and held Draco's trembling jaw steady to administer it.  "Check to see if he's bitten his tongue."

Draco winced as he accidentally bit his mother's fingers when she held his jaw open - he was still almost convulsing, and couldn't help it.  When she removed them, "s-sorry!" he murmured.  She shook her head and raked her fingers through his hair.

"His tongue suffered no damage," Narcissa reported.

"...more's the pity," Severus tacked on, then laughed.

The two Malfoys stared.

"I apologize," Severus repeated, and expressing regret - twice! - was so out of character for _him_ that Draco, trembling and all, frowned with worry.  "Then we must do our best to repair the nerve damage.  The yellow vial, there."

Narcissa ducked around him and withdrew a bottle containing a sunflower-yellow potion.  She uncorked it and her shoulders unhitched a breath; Draco realized it smelled of summer.

"Give him the entire bottle, and it may yet be too little," Snape told her.

Once Draco had coughed and sputtered the entire thing down and there was nothing left to do but wait to see if they needed to brew more, the three fell into an exhausted, numb silence.  Tippy or Pliny came and went several times, but Draco couldn't keep track of what tasks his mother was asking them to perform; he kept drifting in and out of a light, restless slumber.

"...why they would come so close to damaging him, if they didn't wish it," Narcissa was saying, matin light just falling across her face.  She and Snape were perched in two chairs that they had pointed towards the bed.  Narcissa's hair had come completely undone, falling down her back, with numerous wisps out of place.  The collar of her robes was unbuttoned, and her stockings had come off at some point; she was slumped in her chair, curled up with her bare feet just clear of her robes.

He thought: my mother is the most beautiful woman ever born, and closed his eyes.

He heard Snape's answer, though: "...wanted to make it look as though he is really an enemy of our side and was found out."

"...need to be disingenuous," Narcissa was saying, and Draco's eyes fluttered open at her change in tone.  "You needn't call it 'our' side."

"Narcissa, it is dangerous to even -"

"What's more dangerous?" she inquired, and her voice was weary.  "I'm no fool, Severus.  One misstep and he would have murdered the three of us.  He might have regretted it, but he would not have for very long."

"Watch how you speak, Narcissa."

"Do you think he's got a listening charm on Draco's room?"

"...I warded the door.  I thought, even if he noticed, he'd understand a mother's need to be alone with her son after such an ordeal."

"You'd charm him too, if you could manage it."

"I daresay I would.  If I could manage it."

"Unfortunate, that you're not blond enough."

Severus choked.

"You're rather the opposite of blond," she added, contemplatively, taking a lock of his hair and letting it slip through long, slender fingers.

"I -"

"Hush, now," she ordered, and kissed him.

Draco had a feeling he really should've slipped off to sleep while he still could.  As it was - "...urg, what time is it?"

Narcissa rose so gracefully, he was forced to question if he'd dreamed it.  If she'd truly been kissing Snape, shouldn't she have leapt guiltily away?  Wouldn't it at least show on her face?

As it was, she turned to him with an incandescent smile.  "Oh, Draco!  You're awake!"

"And aware," Severus tacked on, rising to take Draco's pulse.

"You saved me," Draco added.  "Again, even if you do think I've lost my mind.  I keep hoping to repay you, someday."

Severus frowned.  "I'm in this dreamworld of yours?" he queried, obviously only half-listening as he counted Draco's heartbeats.

"Of course you are," Draco said.  "The entire thing took place at Hogwarts, didn't it?  Where else would you be?  You mentored Harry."

Snape rolled his eyes.  "I shall be surprised at nothing, after this," he commented to Narcissa.

"You taught him _Obscura_ ," Draco added.

Snape froze, then shook his head.  "Then you are doubly mistaken," he went on as he cast a generalized diagnostic charm.  "I would never teach anyone such a dangerous spell."

"He needed it after Black fell through the Veil, you couldn't work together and you needed to teach him to guard his mind.  He was too angry and uncontrolled without it."

Snape repeated the first part of the diagnostic spell, but added a specificity tag that Draco hadn't heard before; he assumed Snape meant to scan his nervous system in more depth.

"Did it work?" Snape inquired, after a moment.

"Yes, but then events conspired to make you forget you taught it to him, but he kept doing it without – without – without thinking.  He didn't even know what he was doing, at the time."

Snape and Narcissa were staring at him, so he stopped talking.

"It's not all _that_ odd."

"Darling, you – stammered," Narcissa informed him.

"Stammered?  I don't _stammer_ , mother."

Severus shook his head and frowned when the spell exploded in a red-orange haze over Draco's head.  "He'll need another batch of the _Hypericum Draught_ ," he pronounced.  "The damage is too extensive."

"I'll help," Narcissa informed him.  "I was always good in Potions."

"Nonsense.  I insist you have a shower, change your clothes, and eat something.  Your son and I will be just fine for a moment or two alone."

Narcissa's cool blue gaze slipped from Severus, to Draco, and back again.  Draco got the feeling she really didn't want to leave their presence at all.  She leaned over to kiss Draco on the cheek, though, and disappeared.

"So," Draco said, as casually as he could manage it.  "You fancy my mother."

Severus jumped, then turned on his most furious glare.  "Little boys who eavesdrop get their ears hexed off," he swore.

"Never mind me, I'm fine with it.  Mother should be happy."

"And your father?"

Draco frowned.  "She can't be his wife if he's - gone."

"Very enlightened of you.  Nonetheless, you are mistaken."

"You seemed pretty taken to me."

"Narcissa is merely attempting to - secure her assets.  She is a very clever woman."

It wasn't _cleverness_ he saw in his mother's eyes when she looked at Severus, but Draco was too clever himself to say so.  "So she's just making sure you stay on her - on her - on her side," Draco confirmed, rolling his eyes.

"Of course," Severus hissed.  "Why else would she - ?" he broke off mid-sentence, whirling to brew.

Oh, this was _hilarious_.  Hermione would have a field day.  She'd charm Severus's hair blond in honor of his undying love.

He immediately changed the subject, however, knowing not to risk Wrath of Snape.  "I don't understand.  Neville's parents went mad."

"They did," Severus confirmed, furiously chopping some green, leafy potions ingredient that let off a sharp, lemony scent.  "And you were mad yourself there for awhile.  But Bellatrix kept at the Longbottoms for hours, and they did not have the benefit of an on-site Potions Master waiting for her to give up."

"...how long...?"

"Twenty, maybe thirty minutes," Severus replied.  "And she let you rest in between bouts."

"Kind of her," Draco deadpanned.  "I seem rather cheery for the recently _Crucio_ 'd," he added.

"That'll be the _Hypericum_ ," Snape agreed.  "A potion for damaged nerves, one of the best potions to rid the body of magical taint, and also, coincidentally, an antidepressant."

"Ah."

"You'll be off to Hogwarts the moment you find your feet," Severus went on, gathering up the leafy greens with both hands and dropping them into a cold cauldron.

Draco felt a rush of fear.  "You and Mother -?"

" - will stay here," Snape finished.

"But you can't!" Draco shouted.  "You can't, he'll -"

"He will do nothing," Snape growled, stalking to the potions cabinet and withdrawing a dark jar of bright yellow flowers.  "We are both too valuable to him."

"I'm valuable to him!  He thinks you're sending me back - back - back to Hogwarts as a _spy_ and he nearly killed me!"

"Nearly being the operative word," Snape added, shaking the bright flowers into the cauldron.  "And so: you figured that out, did you?"

"He supposes they'll see me injured, and I'll pledge my undying whatever to the Light and they'll let me into their confidence, being the Gryffindor fools that they are."

"And when the time is ripe, you can be plucked like a hanging fruit," Severus continued.  "I will remove the spell, and you will tell us everything."

"That's diabolical," Draco commented.

"Ingenious, rather," Snape corrected.  "Especially for such short notice."

Narcissa returned then, with porridge and fruit.  Draco had thought that he was starving, but on seeing the porridge, his stomach gave an uncomfortable flip.

Snape, however, shoveled the food in as though it were fuel, and then resumed work on the potion, while Narcissa seated herself on the edge of Draco's bed.  "Soon, you will be leaving us," she said.

"How soon?"

"The moment the last potion is finished."

Draco stared.  He thought he'd at least have a few days to recover.  He wasn't even sure he could stand unaided.

"I will help you," Narcissa continued.  "We will Portkey to the edge of the Forbidden Forest and make our way to Hogwarts.  There I will beg entrance, and I beg of you, my dearest, not to pay any heed to the words I say when I do."

Draco nodded, but his mother was not satisfied.  Her cool blue eyes fastened onto his.  "What I say may be hurtful.  You must let it pass, and understand that I love you with all my heart."

Draco blushed.  "Yes, mother."

"Good boy.  Severus, how close are we to ready?"

"It will take another twenty minutes for this to finish brewing, and a few to cool to drinking temperature."

"Then I shall go prepare.  Tippy!  Pliny!"

The two House Elves popped into existence and bowed low.

"Pack an overnight bag for the Young Master.  It should contain several changes of clothes, his toiletries - but," she added, with a quick glance Draco's way, "just his toothbrush, paste, and hairbrush, none of his hair things.  Oh, Draco dear, do not look at me so - it must appear as though we were in a hurry - and nightclothes, and whatever Potion he shall have left over.  Also, nut-bread and a flagon of water, I fear we shall have a long walk ahead of us."

"Yes, Mistress!" they exclaimed, ears twitching with the impetus of her words.  They disappeared immediately.

"I shall return.  Eat that," she ordered, and strode out of the room.

Severus didn't look after her, but Draco could practically feel him wanting to.

"Thank you," Draco said, after a long moment filled only with the sounds of chopping and stirring.

"I have made an Unbreakable Vow to protect your life with my own," Severus said without turning from his potion.  "I have had little choice in the matter, since."

"But why did you _make_ the Vow in the first - first - first place?"  Severus Snape was too brilliant a man not to know what it would take to keep Draco alive in the age of Voldemort.  He had to have been aware what a monumental task it was that he had taken on.  When Severus didn't respond, he realized: "...my mother asked you."

" _Yes_ , blast her!" Severus shouted, whirling in place to glare at Draco.  "She asked me, practically on bended knee; she _begged_ for your miserable life!"

Draco nodded and didn't say anything else.  The vision of his mother's obeisance to Voldemort still made him a little nauseated.  He didn't want to contemplate the lengths she'd gone to in order to get Snape to make the Unbreakable Vow.

Snape turned back to his ingredients, but the slope of his shoulders was trembling, whether with anger, fear or fatigue Draco couldn't guess.  He'd never been very good at reading people even when he was at his best.  But he knew that while he'd slept, fitfully, Severus and Narcissa hadn't; and the night before that, they hadn't, either.  Severus claimed to have killed Dumbledore; if that were the case, he might not have slept that evening, either - and if he'd planned it, perhaps not for several evenings in a row before that.  It would certainly go a long way towards explaining his erratic behavior, his sharper than usual mood swings.

Draco chose to keep this to himself, however, and merely wriggled more snugly into the blankets, enjoying being taken care of (even if he did have the world's surliest nursemaid), and basking in the glow of his mother's care.  He drifted off to sleep again, and woke to Snape's hand pressing into his shoulder what seemed like mere seconds later.

"About half," Severus advised, handing him a still-warm bottle of potion.  "The rest in six hours."

Draco downed it, capped the bottle, and handed it off to Pliny, who packed it in Draco's trunk at the House Elf's feet and immediately latched the trunk closed.

Narcissa arrived, clad in a black velvet cloak, heavy, tasseled hood trailing behind her, looking for all the world like the witch on the cover of the latest romance novel, tragic and betrayed.  Draco sat up in bed and raised his eyebrows.

"It's best to look the part," Narcissa informed him, catching a last look in the glass and poking a bit at her artfully disheveled hair.  "Come along, now."

Draco pushed himself to his feet.  "Shouldn't I get changed?"

"Not a bit of it; the more authentic the better."

"You aren't forgetting that I _was_ _Crucio_ 'd?" Draco challenged.

Her expression suddenly froze, and Draco realized it was far too soon to attempt to make light of the situation, at least with his mother; he had a feeling Snape was used to laughing at shadows.  "I could hardly have missed it," she replied tartly, but then visibly squared her shoulders and resumed her cheery demeanor.  " _Reducio_!" she spelled the trunk of Draco's things, and passed it off to Draco to put into his pocket.  Tippy handed her a smaller bag, from which the smell of nutbread emerged; Narcissa did not bother to shrink that.  She moved to Draco's side and offered him her other arm.

"I'll be fine on my own," Draco replied, then slumped sideways; his mother had already braced herself, and caught him on her right side.  He turned to glare at Snape.  "I thought you said I'd be fine!"

"I believe that, if you take the rest of that potion tonight, you will not suffer any permanent nerve damage," Severus corrected.  "That does not mean that you did not damage muscles you did not know you had, straining against the pain.  You will find it difficult to walk for some days, yet."

"And we're choosing today to go _why_?" Draco demanded, an aftershock of pain dancing down his nerves.

"The more authentic, the better," Narcissa repeated.  "The Light may decide it's feasible for us to have stolen some of Severus's potions and escaped.  But the longer we linger, the less believable that story will become."

"We won't be able to say that Professor Snape helped us?"

Narcissa and Severus exchanged a glance over his head.

"Oi!" he exclaimed.  "Down here!"

Then he blushed.  "Okay, sometimes I do sound a _tiny small bit_ like Ronald Weasley, but if so it's because his expressions seem more appropriate sometimes.  For shouting."

Narcissa cast a lightening charm to better bear his weight.  "Dearest, Severus has to stay here.  And for him to stay here - safely - there cannot be the slightest doubt that he is entirely..."

"Say it outright," Draco replied.  "None of the three of us are for the Dark Lord, if any of the three of us ever really were."

Narcissa stared at him a moment, eyes suspiciously shiny.  "I could've sworn you were so proud – but yes, of course, you're your mother's son, aren't you, Draco?"

Draco told her he was not sure how he could manage to be anyone else's.

"Here is the Portkey," Snape said, grim-faced.  "It will take you to the edge of the Forbidden Forest.  It's as close as I could get you."

" _Thank you_ , Severus," Narcissa exclaimed.  She moved forward, as if she wanted to embrace him or kiss him, but she was hampered by Draco at her right side, who could barely support even his greatly reduced weight on his own.

"You needn't thank me," he said tiredly.  "You've gotten what you came for."

Draco wanted to tell Snape that of course Narcissa cared for him, but even he wasn't sure.  His mother was a consummate actress, capable of charming anyone – Voldemort! – in order to get what she wanted.  Even Draco himself would doubt her, except that her actions of late had been so clearly and so unselfishly on his behalf.

Narcissa looked torn.  "Severus, I –"

And of course the Portkey activated.  And while most people would have considered Narcissa's cut-off confession to be romantically tragic, Draco Malfoy was not most people.

Instead, he thought it was quite convenient how the Portkey had dragged them away before she had to declare herself one way, or the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the longest I've written without a section break. This was all one, long jangled frightening experience for me as I wrote...
> 
> Finally, in the tradition of including recs in the author's notes: this week's is Ain't No Friend of Mine by tkp, hosted over at hd_inspired. Draco is turned into a dog by a new breed of Dementor, and after much trial and error, he is adopted by Harry. The story goes on to explore both young men in some depth; it has perhaps the best characterization of both Harry and Malfoy, revealing an unexpected strength in Draco and a mirror-weakness in Harry. Brilliant. :)
> 
> Hope you're liking it so far, folks! Lots of hits but not so many reviews... perhaps that's because I instruct people to go read the prequel first. Still... :(
> 
> -K


	5. Chapter 5

The 'Key dropped Draco and Narcissa in the middle of nondescript, mostly-evergreen woodland, woodland that looked identical to that which Severus and Draco had fled through the night before last.  Draco slumped sideways, knees knocking, and Narcissa let him go in a controlled fall.

"Sit a moment," she ordered.  "Traveling by Portkey is difficult in the best of circumstances."

Thunder sounded in the distance.  Draco pulled himself, wobbling, to his feet.  "I don't think we have a moment," he told her.

Nodding, she slung his arm over one shoulder and they toddled on for a bit.  Narcissa was beginning to breathe heavily when Draco ordered another rest and they broke to share some nutbread.

"Can't you just cast _Mobilicorpus_?"

Narcissa smiled at him, handing him the flagon of watered wine.  "Tell me why I oughtn't."

Draco sighed.  "You'll want to look sweaty and disheveled when you arrive," he replied.  "Why can't we just ask for help?"

"Like Gryffindors?" Narcissa countered.  "We have to look pitiful enough to warrant sympathy, and strong enough to be of some use.  If we do not plan our request well, they will deny it out of hand."

"Harry wouldn't turn us away," Draco returned.  He might not feel the same connection to the boy as he had before, but of this he was certain.

"Harry will not remember you as you remember him," Narcissa reminded him.  "And in any case, it may not all be up to Mister Potter."

"In my experience, it's always up to Mister Potter - more than is good for him," Draco countered, rolling his eyes.  When Narcissa engaged him in a reluctant smile, he realized that this might be his last chance to talk to her alone in a long time.  "You really believe I've been enchanted by Potter?"

"I believe you've been enchanted by someone," Narcissa corrected.  "Frankly, I don't believe Potter capable of that much power or subtlety, but Severus seems to see that boy as capable of anything."

Draco nodded.  "Professor Snape has a… unique view of Harry.  But he's right as far as that goes.  Harry escaped the Dark Lord all those times because no matter how many times Harry evaded him, the Dark Lord underestimated him again and again.  He's sort of unassuming, makes you think he's not half so able and clever as he really is.  And then, before you know it…"  He shook his head.

The blond witch tilted her head to one side, in thought.  "Noted.  But I suppose it was Dumbledore who cast it on you at the top of the Astronomy Tower.  A last defense, and maybe something more.  Perhaps you were even meant to be a Trojan Horse, sent back to murder the Dark Lord or sow discontent."

It was the most reasonable explanation, aside from his own, that Draco had heard so far.  Dumbledore was the only wizard aside from Voldemort himself who possessed the cunning, shrewdness and sheer power required to cast a mental net of this magnitude.  Dumbledore would have ample motivation for turning Draco to the Light.  If gaining Harry a new and devoted ally wasn't enough, the elderly wizard's life had been at stake.

Of course, Draco didn't believe it for a second.  Doubts he'd felt while under torture aside, he knew how detailed and how seamless his memories were; he knew them to be real.  But Narcissa couldn't know that, couldn't see his mind from the inside.  She was no Legilimens.

"If you think the Light cast this spell on me, why are you bringing me to them?"

Narcissa raised her brows and pursed her lips, a clear query on his intelligence.

"All right – you suppose you can't hide me away for long, and both sides want to use me –"

" – but only the Dark Lord incarcerates or murders any of his followers who stop amusing him."

"You don't know that's not true about Dumbledore, too," Draco returned.  "Maybe it was only that everyone amused him."

"Quite possibly," she replied, adjusting her hood.  "He was often amused."

For a moment, the pair hung their heads, Draco dwelling on the clear and unpleasant sense memory of a distinct _thump_.  It was strange to think that his mother might have pleasant memories of the old man from her own school days.

"What if the Dark Lord asks Professor Snape to come and get me?  He'll realize there's no spell."

Narcissa stood, brushing nutbread crumbs off of her cloak.  "Of course there is.  And when you return, you'll gladly tell him everything."

Draco gulped.

The blond's gaze turned icy as she lifted her chin in challenge.  "Even if there isn't a spell, Draco – you'll tell him everything, gladly or not."

"I suppose he'll just have to be dead by then," Draco replied.  "Again," he added under his breath, allowing Narcissa to pull him to his feet.

Overhead, the sky was darkening; it was shaping up to be one of those summer storms, with huge thunderheads - strong, sweeping, and over very quickly.  A loud crack of thunder split the morning, and Narcissa redoubled their pace.

Finally, they emerged from the Forbidden Forest just as the storm broke.  Narcissa laughed as she raised her hood and her son's and started towards the Hogwarts gates: tall, impressive stone pillars topped with winged hogs.  When they reached the cast iron of the gates themselves, the hogs turned on their perches and stared.

Narcissa froze, clutching Draco tightly to her side.

The hogs opened their snouts and began to sing:

_Greetings, traveler on the road,_

_Welcome now, to journey's end._

_We welcome you to our abode,_

_We gladly name you well-met friend._

_But summer's brought a blight to us,_

_A tree in leaf's hacked to the core,_

_We weep to speak, but must say nevertheless,_

_That Death has come for Dumbledore._

_Weep for the end of such a life,_

_That cheerful attendance, made all too brief,  
_

_Cut short by betrayal, by darkness and strife,_

_Bow your head in darkest grief_ _..._

_Your children are safe; they are inside,_

_though they huddle, for comfort, together;_

_the rest of the staff is well, besides_

_the dark that comes in darkest weather._

_Now we have said all that can be exposed._

_Hogwarts is, most unfortunately, closed._

_Light shall return, but joy no more:_

_Death has come for Dumbledore._

 

The two hogs turned so that they were facing one another once more, instead of Draco and Narcissa.

Draco shook his head, but Narcissa strode up to the winged hogs and rapped smartly on one.  "I _will_ talk to someone in charge!" she demanded.  "Now!"

The hogs looked singularly unimpressed.

She looked at Draco and her eyes darkened.  "I have Dumbledore's murderer!"

The gates swung open with a rusty squeal – or maybe that was just the hogs again – and the pair moved forward, down the rapidly muddying path around the Lake.

"Mother, are you sure that was a good idea?"

"I never say things rashly," she replied, and Draco went quiet.  This was probably the part where _I won't mean any of it_ applied.

They reached the front doors more rapidly than Draco would have expected.  Time seemed elastic - maybe this was due to the weight of his recent bout of the Cruciatus, but it was more likely just terror.  If these people really thought he'd murdered Dumbledore, he'd be _Avada Kedavra_ 'd before he could so much as blink.

He would have to trust his mother, and it occurred to him that he'd done a lot of _trusting_ lately; though to be fair it was the right decision so far, as he was still alive and mostly intact.

A bright flash of light cut the sky and Draco could see that the door had been cracked open; someone was expecting their arrival.

When they reached the door, he saw it was the Deputy H – it was the Headmistress, Professor McGonagall, with Hagrid and Flitwick standing behind her.

Narcissa began to weep openly and stagger against his weight; she surreptitiously returned Draco to his original mass with her wand.  Of course, Hagrid moved immediately to help her drag Draco in from the rain.  "Thank you!" she exclaimed, "oh, thank you!" and followed Hagrid in, wringing her hands.

"Mistress Malfoy," Minerva McGonagall greeted her.

Hagrid had chosen to carry Draco with one hand under his bent knees and the other behind his back, which was rather humiliating, but Draco couldn't find it in himself to complain.  His entire body was shaking from the exertion, and it felt almost sinfully good to allow his abused muscles to finally relax.

"Please, my son has been hurt..." she said.  "It was the Cruciatus Curse..."

Professor Flitwick was won over too, Draco observed, as the little man rushed to his side and immediately began performing diagnostic charms.

Minerva McGonagall lifted one, tired eyebrow.  "This is not a hospital, Narcissa."

Narcissa nodded.  "I know!  But I also knew that my husband's – associates – could reach Draco at Saint Mungo's... I couldn't risk it... I knew that he would be safest here, here of all places -"

McGonagall had her wand out in an instant, and had fired a silencing hex at Narcissa before Draco could reach his own – though he felt so uncoordinated that he worried he needn't have bothered.

"Well I remember you from your schooldays, Narcissa," McGonagall snapped.  "Your son's your mirror image - could sell a raincoat to the Great Squid, that one, when he puts forth the effort - and I haven't forgotten.  However, it seems that it has escaped _your_ mind that your dubious charms do not work on me..."

"Dubious charms!  I like that!" Draco shouted at her, flailing in a most haphazard fashion.  "And while I appreciate the compliment, we're not here to sell any raincoats!  We really do need help!"

"Oh, I've no doubt you need help," McGonagall replied.  "But I have no incentive to give it to you.  In fact, I see very little reason not to have you arrested on the spot."

Narcissa waved elegantly at her throat, not looking the least bit put out, which Draco found rather impressive, given the circumstances.

"Oh, very _well_ ," the Headmistress replied, and cancelled the spell.

His mother's usual, elegant charm was absent, however, when she next spoke.  "Here it is: he's been enchanted, and I didn't know where else to go."

"Enchanted?" Flitwick queried.  "How so, my dear?"

"Tell them, Draco," Narcissa offered.

"I have very different memories of the last year," Draco explained from his perch in Hagrid's arms.  "Your beard is very scratchy," he added.

"How convenient," McGonagall scoffed.

Draco thought that the beard was frankly very _in_ convenient right now, and then realized that he was getting a little punchy.  "I don't feel very well," he tacked on.  A bed in the Hospital Wing sounded like heaven about now.

"Come now, Minerva, the boy's obviously suffering from the aftereffects of extended Cruciatus," Flitwick implored.

"Draco Malfoy has been an expert at faking various illnesses and injuries since he came into my care," McGonagall protested.

"That's right!" Draco shouted.  "I'm supposed to be in your bloody care, aren't I?  I'm still a student here, aren't I?  If Dumbledore were here, I'd already _be_ in the Wing!"

There followed a blank silence, in which McGonagall's cheeks grew hotter and hotter.

"How –" she finally rasped.  "How _dare_ you –?"

"I dare because I'm right.  He would've treated me first and asked – asked – asked –"

"Draco, darling," Narcissa crooned, "you'd best stop now, before you get stuck."

"It's back?  He would've asked questions later.  And you know it."

McGonagall stared.

"Oh, yeah, my acting's improved tremendously.  I can _stammer_ , now."

His Transfigurations professor wiped a tired hand down her face and finally threw both hands in the air.  "Take him to the Hospital Wing, Professor Flitwick, and watch him very carefully.  Narcissa, you will come with me to the Headma-istress's Office."

Narcissa looked a little nervous, like a third-year called up for cheating, but Draco didn't blame her.  The blond looked very small next to McGonagall, who was a half a head taller than she.

Narcissa reminded Draco about the brewed potion in his case and kissed him on the cheek.

"Be careful," he told her.

"Careful as a dragon tamer," she replied softly, smoothing his hair with one hand.

That was a little embarrassing, but it was nothing compared to being held like a damsel in distress by a half-giant, so Draco smiled and they parted ways for the first time in what seemed like days.

Poppy Pomfrey looked up and gave a gasp at their entrance.  "Mister Malfoy!" she exclaimed.

"Hullo, Madame Pomfrey," Draco replied.  They'd gotten to know one another pretty well the last time he'd been in the Wing.  She'd covered up his Mark like a wound and treated him warily at first; but familiarity bred ease if not contempt, and soon she was saving bits of crossword from the _Daily Prophet_ for him to puzzle over in the mornings.

"It's the Cruciatus Curse, Madam Pomfrey," Flitwick announced.

"Oh my goodness!  Over here, then, over here!"

Hagrid lay him down in one of the Wing's many cots, more than the usual number of which were occupied.  Draco looked to his right to see Neville Longbottom in the bed beside him.  "What happened to _him_?"

"Never you mind, just look here," Pomfrey chided.

Draco settled into the bedclothes and followed the tip of the wand with his eyes as Pomfrey ordered.  He went through his alphabet, name, House, and the six fundamental principles of Transfiguration before the witch was satisfied his mind was intact.  Flitwick had tired of the entire process long since, and perched on one of the Wing's several stools.

"Now, what on earth is it that happened?"

Draco told the abbreviated (and highly edited) version of the story: he'd been dragged to Malfoy Manor by Snape at wandpoint, whereupon Snape decided he'd lost his mind; the Dark Lord came and tortured him for refusing to kill Dumbledore; his mother had seen his condition, stolen potions from Snape's stores and spirited him away to the Forbidden Forest, in hopes of seeking sanctuary at Hogwarts.

Draco had no idea where his mother had gotten the notion of claiming he'd been tasked to kill Dumbledore, which was, to his mind, more than a little fanciful: given all the grown wizards on Voldemort's side, why him?  It also seemed to him that claiming such a thing could hardly endear him to the professors at Hogwarts.  Still, Narcissa insisted this be the story he tell.

Draco also wasn't sure how to explain he had a different view of the past year than they all seemed to.  He wasn't sure how to ask if Ron had the same problem; not without appearing completely mad.  After a moment, Pomfrey's diagnostic charm burst into brilliant red-orange smoke over his head, just as Snape's had.

A loud groan sounded from across the room, and Pomfrey's head jerked up as though someone had yanked it on a string – "excuse me, dear," she blurted to Draco and strode with quick efficiency over to the opposite side of the hospital.  "Are they hurting again, Bill?"

" 'S really not tha' bad," came the slurred answer.

"Well, it's probably time for some more ointment, wouldn't you say?" Pomfrey's voice sounded just as it had when she was examining the angry redness around Draco's new Dark Mark: determinedly cheerful, as though intent on ignoring the darker reality of the situation.

Draco turned on his side to peer over at Bill.  He couldn't help a gasp.

"Young man!" Pomfrey barked, catching sight of his startled features.  "Show some decency and respect!  Bill was injured last night by Greyback in human form; he was fighting for this school."

"Never min', Mad'm Pomfee," Bill hissed through his swollen mouth.  "Better get used to it."

"Nonsense!" Madam Pomfrey looked unsettled, tucking the blankets more tightly around Bill.  "Most of this swelling will go down in a few days, and then we'll be able to see.  Until then, it's all guesswork as to how you'll look in the end."

"Ri'," Bill agreed, but he sounded resigned.  His eyes were swollen almost shut with the angry, puffy red-and-yellow of infection; the man probably hadn't even been able to take stock of how bad it really was, yet.

 _That'll be the_ Hypericum, _a potion for damaged nerves, one of the best potions to rid the body of magical taint..._   Draco looked down at the bottle in his hand and frowned.  He had always prided himself on his speaking voice, but it wasn't as though stammering was causing him actual pain.  Bill's face looked screwed up with it, even as he smiled at Madam Pomfrey.

It wasn't like his problem couldn't wait.  It wasn't as though his problem was half so serious as Bill's.

"I have this potion..." Draco began.  " _Hypericum_ draught..." 

He looked up to find Pomfrey's motion arrested mid-motion at Bill's bedside.  "You have _Hypericum_ draught?" she said, dubiously.  "Only a Potions Master can produce it..."

"Well, and I stole it from a Potions Master," Draco replied, but inside his stomach was flipping.  If only a Potions Master could produce _Hypericum_ draught, his own dose could be a long time coming.

"That would dispel the last of the effects of the Cruciatus Curse," Pomfrey told him.

_Yes, I'm bloody well aware of that, don't make this more difficult than it already is!_

Draco swallowed, then shook his head, angry with his own hesitation.  "I daresay I can manage to wait a bit more easily than Bill."

Madam Pomfrey strode over to his bed to accept the _Hypericum_ draught with something approaching reverence.  "Thank you, my dear," she said, voice somewhat wobbly.  She resumed her no-nonsense cheer without a hitch, though.  "Tilt up, now!" she ordered Bill, leaning him forward and tipping the remains of the Potion down his throat.

Bill swallowed; and then, Madam Pomfrey and Draco watched as the hideous wounds on his face shrank, whitened, and faded to an interlocking pattern of pale scars.

And what had been so hard to see under the puffiness and oozing blood became perfectly clear to Draco.

"You're Bill _Weasley_!" he exclaimed.

"You're _Malfoy_?" Bill sputtered, wiping the last of the infected gunk free from his eyes.  "You _stepped over me_ during the Battle!"

"I most certainly did _no - no - no such thing_ ," Draco countered.

Bill stared.

"I think I'd remember!" Draco shouted.  He watched Bill's lips twist for a moment.  Draco couldn't help the uncharitable thought that pondering seemed physically painful on the mobile Weasley features.

"Reckon it could've been anyone."

Draco smiled in relief.

Bill continued grinning at him, and might have kept on grinning but for Madam Pomfrey's, "that's enough, now, Bill," through a voice that sounded suspiciously choked.  She moved back to Draco, and tucked the covers in around him.

"Here you are, dear," Madam Pomfrey said, handing him a milky white potion.  "This'll help with the symptoms."

"I'll stop stuttering?"

She smiled, sadly.  "If you take it every morning."

"You mean I won't _ever –_ "

"Take heart, dear.  It's a simple neurorestorative, easy to brew, cheap to produce.  There are all sorts of people who have to take a potion every morning.  And no daily potion would have fixed what was the matter with Bill.  You did something very noble, and neither Bill nor I will forget it in a hurry.  Matter of fact, I'm willing to bet you could call on any of the Weasleys, now.  And I think that's worth a bit of a stammer, don't you?"

Draco could hardly say that hadn't crossed his mind.  He could be stuck here, and if he was interested in rebuilding his world as he knew it, he needed Ron.

"You think on that," she advised, and moved on to Neville's bed.

Maybe it was the potion, or maybe it was just the end of a series of long, terribly harrowing days, but Draco, even so anxious as he was, fell asleep like dropping off a cliff.

Later that afternoon, Draco woke to the sounds of raised, hysterical voices.

"Bill!  Bill, what's happened to you?"

"Hi, mum," came Bill's voice, and the woman burst into ragged tears.

Draco opened his eyes and propped himself up in bed with no small difficulty.  He saw that the woman was Molly Weasley, and that she was stumbling closer, throwing her arms around her son.

"Malfoy saved me," Bill told her, patting her on the back.  "He had a potion and he gave it to me when he needed it himself."

Molly Weasley looked across the Wing towards Draco in surprise, then turned to Madam Pomfrey, standing at the foot of Bill's hospital cot.  "Is - is this true?"

Madam Pomfrey looked as though she would enjoy a good cry, herself.  Haltingly, she nodded.

Mrs. Weasley crossed the room to Draco, who automatically canvassed the Wing for exit strategies.  Maybe she, too, remembered him stepping callously over her injured son.

Instead of haranguing him, her expression became almost painfully tender as she raised her hand to squeeze his shoulder.  "There now," she said, lowly.  "I don't know what possessed you, but my family is in your debt."

 _And I'm in yours_ , he thought, but did not say – he doubted she remembered Ron sticking by him, Dark Mark and all.

"Clearly," she added, "there's more to you than meets the eye."

Draco thought this was the understatement of several lifetimes, but he kept as quiet as only a terrified Malfoy knew how.  The Gryffindors were one thing, but Mrs. Weasley was in her own echelon when it came to invasion of personal space.

"But what am I doing?  I heard about the Unforgivables – makes me mad as a niffler outside Gringotts – throwing Unforgivables at children, I can't even imagine – but then, you must be tired, Draco, dear.  You just sleep as much as you can, let all those potions do their work."  She stood, bussed Bill on the cheek and swept out in a cloud of essential motherliness.

Draco obliged her with embarrassing rapidity, falling into unconsciousness the moment his head hit the pillow.

 

Long before he was well enough to try it, Draco knew that his next step was to contact Ron and share information.  He'd sent Ron his Patronus with a very circumspectly worded message back at Spinner's End, but the other boy had never sent one in return.  Maybe his first Patronus hadn't reached Ron.  He certainly had been testing the spell for distance.  Maybe he'd exceeded what his Patronus was capable of.

He knew, however, that his Patronus was more than capable of traveling from one person to another in the same building.

When he could prop himself up in bed and remain awake for more than a few hours at a time, he closed his eyes and pictured… well, what?  He knew for certain that Voldemort was alive again, now.  He couldn't use his standby Patronus memory.  Most of his recent pleasant memories involved Harry, and a great deal of those had lost their lustre in the wake of Snape's spell.  It took him a half an hour and innumerable tries in order to summon the memory of everyone bursting into the Great Hall with wands raised, saving he and Harry when he'd been so very certain they were both – well.  _Best not dwell on that part of the memory…_   "Expecto patronum!"

Draco grinned at the silvery fox that appeared in his lap.  "Hello, you beautiful creature," he greeted it.  "Find Ron Weasley and tell him that he must come here tonight so that we can talk."

The glowing animal tilted its head to one side, as if listening.  A moment later, it leapt off of Draco's hospital cot and shot out the door.

Twenty minutes later, Draco heard the distinct noise of the Hospital Wing door opening and closing, but couldn't see a thing, even though his eyes were well-adjusted to the dark.  Either Harry had accompanied Ron, or Ron had nicked his friend's Invisibility Cloak.

It turned out to be the latter; Ron appeared right where Draco was looking, expecting him to be, and still he was startled enough to jump.

"Well?" Ron grated.

Draco blinked.  "Well, yourself.  Lovely evening for a chat."

Ron sank slowly into one of the many chairs that were scattered about the Wing, his eyes never leaving Draco's face.  "Cut to the chase, Malfoy."

Draco shook his head with a smile; Ron seating himself implied that he expected a rather protracted conversation.  "Very well.  How's Harry?"

"Since when is he _Harry_ to you?"

Draco put a hand to his forehead, which had suddenly begun thumping.  "All right, you don't remember who I am –"

"You're Draco Malfoy, I know perfectly well who _you_ are –"

" – which begs the question of why on earth you came when I called in the first place."

"You saved my brother Bill," Ron replied through clenched teeth.  "If not his life, then… you saved his pride.  People would've stared at him wherever he went.  I don't care what Harry says, it doesn't matter why you did it.  I still owe you."

Draco shimmied up underneath his bedcovers.  "Is that so?"

"You don't have to look so pleased," Ron grimaced.

But Draco was very pleased indeed on one level, even if he was heartsick with disappointment on another.  "But this is marvelous," he replied.  "You can help me figure out what in the bloody blazes is going on."

"Search me," Ron immediately replied, "but I'll hazard you've lost whatever cracked marbles you had to begin with."

Draco blithely ignored this slander.  "Seen anybody who looks suspiciously identical to you?  Or to me, for that matter?"

Ron looked taken aback.

"That's a 'no'," Draco surmised.  He paused for a moment, juggling all of the variables, before coming to a decision.  "Does your obligation extend to a Wizards' Debt?"

The other boy's dark blue eyes flashed with anger.  "You didn't save his _life_."

"No, just his livelihood.  His pride, as you say.  Maybe his upcoming marriage to Fleur Delacour."

Ron's lips thinned.  "Just tell me what you want, Malfoy."

"Color me surprised.  You're a pureblood after all, aren't you, Weasley?  All right, all right, no need to look so apoplectic.  'Apoplectic', by the way, means frozen, usually in shock and amazement."

To Draco's surprise, Ron didn't protest that of course he knew what apoplectic meant; instead, he turned pink and ducked his head.

Draco sped past the other boy's embarrassment in that way that was beginning to become instinctual from spending time with Ron, who angered and embarrassed easily.  Sometimes, it felt like there were invisible lines around Harry, Hermione and Ron that he tripped without understanding he'd made a mistake until he saw their reactions.  Just now, he felt as though he'd called Mrs. Weasley a dreadful name.

"What I need," he said, deciding to push the conversation forward before Ron could verbally explode and escape, "is a research partner."

Ron blinked up at him, consternation replacing… whatever he'd been experiencing before.  Draco wasn't the best judge.  "I don't think Hermione will help me if she knows it's for you."

Was he being deliberately obtuse?  "Not Hermione.  I need _your_ help.  I'd like to get back to where I come from – if that's even possible.  In order to do so, I'll probably need Hermione's help eventually, but the fact is I'll also need Snape's and Remus Lupin's.  And there's no way Snape is coming back here until Voldemort is dead."

Ron stared as though he'd started speaking in tongues.

"Are you listening?" Draco wondered.

"What makes you think Snape'll agree to help you?"

Draco thought this was a fair question.  "I know him better than you, Weasley.  Things look bad now, but Professor Snape…"  At Ron's skeptical, you-fool! expression, Draco rushed on.

"The more immediate issue is that the Dark Lord believes I'm spying for him.  Eventually he's going to send someone to reclaim me.  When he does, he'll realize that I haven't been spying for him at all and that Professor Snape lied to him.  Then he'll kill me _and_ Professor Snape.  So… and I realize this is more than a bit daunting… I'll have to kill _him_ before he gets the chance."

Ron choked.

"So, what I need from you is some research and strategy.  I can draw you a layout of Malfoy Manor, and we can work out the best way to enter without being observed.  Then –"

The redhead shook his head and held up one hand.  "I'm not sure what you're about, Malfoy, but I'm guessing you hope to deliver me to Malfoy Manor tied hand and foot.  Are you looking to give your master some leverage – am I supposed to be the bait that attracts Harry?  No way, not a chance.  You may have figured I'd be the easiest mark of the three of us, but even I'm not that dumb."

Draco tilted his head to one side.  "You're not stupid at all, as far as I'm aware.  That's why I'm asking for your help instead of your girlfriend's."

"Hermione's not my girlfriend!"

At least some things were universal.  "Yet somehow you automatically knew I was referring to Granger," he replied with a grin.  "What if I were to make an Unbreakable Vow?"

Ron suddenly sobered.  "What –?  Malfoy, no."

"It's the quickest way to get you to believe me," Draco countered, drawing his wand from beneath his pillow.  "I could swear to protect you to the best of my ability.  Then you'd know –"

Ron grabbed for his wand hand.  "You – you don't want to."

Draco looked up at him and shook off his grip.  "Why not?  I mean it, Weasley."

"I get that you mean it, mate," Ron agreed, looking hunted.  "That's what's scaring me.  You shouldn't cast Unbreakable Vows without thinking them out, first.  My father cast one, once, and he had two lawyers look over the wording, first.  An Unbreakable Vow can force you to fulfill it in unpredictable ways.  They're _dangerous_."

Draco felt a small smile tugging at his lips.  "Why, Weasley… I didn't know you cared."

"Hating your Slytherin guts is not the same thing as wanting them out where I can see," Ron growled.  "Still…"  He paused, scrubbing at the back of his neck.  "I guess if you were _ready_ to make the Vow, that's enough."

Draco worried his lower lip between his teeth.  Maybe that was enough for Ron, but he doubted it'd be enough for anybody else.  "You don't understand.  Making the Vow to you protects me, too.  None of your Gryffindor friends would attack me.  They wouldn't be able to distrust me, if you vouched for my intentions."

Ron puzzled over this, but Draco knew he already understood.  He was searching for another avenue, playing for time by acting a bit dim.  "What about a binding?"

Draco groaned, then shook his head at Ron's obvious irritation.  "Bindings and I have a long and horrible history is all."  He strongly suspected that the connections between he and Harry, minus the connection forged by the casting of the Unforgivables, were an ancient form of binding.

"You'll promise not to lie to me while the binding is in effect," Ron said.  "And you won't intentionally hurt me or my friends."

"I so swear," Draco agreed, because this was a very easy thing to promise.  A simple binding wouldn't make him speak, like Veritaserum or the Imperius Curse.  If he didn't want to answer, he could simply say so to Ron and still be holding up his end of the bargain.  He could even lie if he wanted to, only Ron would know he'd broken the vow.  Likewise, Ron would know if Draco were plotting to injure he, Harry or Hermione, though Draco wasn't sure how the other boy would be informed, precisely.  Like a lot of the more personal magics, the results of the spell seemed to vary from wizard to wizard.

The two boys drew their wands.  " _Necto fiddes_ ," they cast simultaneously.  Draco felt his throat and heart heat up with a flare of magic; a deep-flame shimmer of dark blue sped from both and hit Ron's heart.

Draco didn't feel any different.  _Necto fiddes_ wasn't very much like the bindings Harry had cast, if bindings they were.  Ron's expression was strange, though – searching.

"I wouldn't've thought you'd have let me do that," he said.

"Much to my amazement, I do trust you," Draco told him, and watched Ron's expression shift.

"You're telling the truth," he said.

"And there you are.  I want the Dark Lord dead, but I don't want to kill or even hurt any of your little friends.  And I want to get back to where I came from.  Which, incidentally, is not here."

Ron's next breath came in shaky, and his blue eyes were unfocussed.

"Weasley?"

Ron shook himself.  "Yeah.  Yeah, fine.  I just – I was so sure you were up to something."

"And I've told you exactly what I'm up to," Draco said with a roll of his eyes.

"Fine, then.  Promise you won't repeat anything I'm about to say, not to anyone but me."

Draco pressed his lips together, but what choice did he have?  "Very well.  I promise I won't reveal what I'm about to hear unless you rescind the order."

"There are these things He Who Must Not Be Named made, called Horcruxes…"

By the time Ron was finished, Draco felt exhausted, but he also felt a bit of triumphant.  "I think I know where one of them is," he said.

Ron stared at him for a moment with an expression of consternation.

"When I say something as vague as that, the spell tells you nothing," Draco guessed.  "Let me be more clear.  I remember what I believe was a locket."

The redhead's eyes lit up.  "Sweet Merlin, Malfoy, that's fantastic.  Where?"

"That's less fantastic."  Draco gripped Ron by his upper arm to steady the both of them and then sighed at Ron's startled flinch.  _I've gone completely native_ , he thought, lifting his hand slowly and placing it in his lap.  "I believe it's around the neck of Bellatrix Lestrange."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Let me know what you're thinking about the meet-and-greet with SoS!Draco and canon!Ron. :D
> 
> -K


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HOLY CRAP GUYS I SKIPPED A CHAPTER.
> 
> "Ron is weirdly trusting" indeed! I AM SO SORRY. PLEASE READ THIS AND ACCEPT MY HUMBLEST APOLOGIES!

Ron went pale in the way that only redheads can.

"I _was_ being _Crucio_ 'd at the time, but I saw her wearing a gold chain with some heavy charm at the end.  I thought it was probably a locket when I saw it."

"Convenient, that's what Harry and Hermione'll say," Ron cut in.  "This is the first lead we've had in awhile.  It seems awfully suspicious, you appearing just at the right time to help us out.  And that you're not the Malfoy they know – even tougher to swallow."

There was something in Ron's expression that Draco read as awkwardness, but he wasn't sure why Ron would be feeling awkward.  He wished there was a Gryffindor field manual somewhere: _behold the retiring Ronald Weasley in his native habitat._ "You can tell when I'm lying to you.  What possible objection could they have?"

Ron shrugged.  "They'll say you got something past me, you learned to fool the spell somehow, or you just worded things in a sneaky way."

Draco could easily see Harry and Hermione saying all of these things.  "Easy, then.  We'll prove I'm trustworthy by bringing something to them they didn't have before."

"Don't get me wrong, Malfoy, the thing about the locket is fantastic, really it is.  But the fact that it's around the neck of Bellatrix Lestrange – you might as well have said it's in the mouth of a basilisk.  And maybe it's a trap – maybe she does have the locket, but she's waiting for us."

"First, I'm aware of the challenge of taking anything from Bellatrix Lestrange that she wants to keep.  And second, I'm not talking about just the locket," Draco replied with a grim smile.  "Look, you said that there were no books on Horcruxes in the entire library, right?"

"Right, and it isn't as though Hermione hasn't searched."

"But there have to be.  Knowledge, no matter how ominous, doesn't disappear, Weasley.  It just goes to ground."

"It's not in the Restricted Section, either –"

"I'm not talking about the Restricted Section," Draco cut in.  "Older students have access to the Restricted Section, if Dumbledore didn't want anyone to see it, he would've gotten rid of the books themselves.  But somehow, I can't see Professor Dumbledore burning books, no matter how hideous.  No, I think he hid them."

Ron's brows shot up.  "Brilliant, that.  Bringing books with you would secure Hermione on your side – so long as you manage to avoid calling her dreadful names."  Then he flushed, and for once Draco thought he understood.  Ron was sorry he'd offered Draco advice so thoughtlessly.  Part of the redhead must still be cursing his luck that he'd offered to repay Bill's debt, and didn't really want Draco to succeed.

But that was one of the side-effects to _Necto fiddes_ that Draco had counted on.  Ron would have a vested interest in his success from now on, and would be more inclined to trust him than not.  The spell's effect was mild, but he also knew that Ron would be more susceptible to it than most.  For all Ron's wariness, he _liked_ to trust people.

It looked like Ron was discerning the effects of the spell for himself and not liking them one bit, so Draco sped on: "Dumbledore probably put them in his office out of harm's way," Draco said.  "So I figure, since you brought the Cloak –"

Ron gawped.  "You think I'll help you sneak into Dumbledore's office and _steal_ something, the night before his funeral?  Are you mad?  Wait," he broke off, pressing one hand to his forehead.  "I think we've already answered that last question."

"Like you said," Draco informed him, "you owe me.  You've got the spell to make sure I'm not lying to you, or even planning to harm you.  What else do you need?"

The redhead sighed, shaking his head.  "Bloody hell, Malfoy," he swore, raking a hand through his hair.  "I don't know.  It's just out of habit for me to trust you."

"Well you'd best get _into_ the habit," Draco returned.  "To think, you were the easiest to convince, back home."

Ron stared, but he didn't ask Draco to elaborate.  "I must be going mad, myself.  Can you stand?"

"Stand, walk, talk, I'm multi-talented," Draco replied, leveraging himself gingerly onto his feet.  His muscles only screamed at him a tiny bit.  "Let's go."

 

The walk down to Dumbledore's office was a bit surreal for Draco, much like walking through his scarred childhood home had been.  The Castle was mostly intact, but now and again the pair would pass curse-marks on the walls.  There was also a neat hole burned into the tapestry that had been Draco's secret favorite as a first-year: a meadow and pale fence with a white unicorn standing at its edge, staring off into the cultivated field.  He was pleased to see that the tiny unicorn had escaped the carnage, but now she wandered forlornly about, incapable of returning to her original position.

"Malfoy!" Ron hissed, and yanked him forward.

It took a full three minutes of the both of them guessing their favorite candies before the staircase up to Dumbledore's office emerged.  Apparently, just before Dumbledore's death, his favorites had been Acid Pops.

The pair stepped onto the winding staircase and threw the cloak to the side when the door closed behind them.

For a few bare moments, neither boy moved.  They were not held in the spell of any of Dumbledore's beautiful and curious magical objects.  They instead stared at his empty stuffed chair, both of them reflecting on how he would never fill it again.

"Where should we look first?" Ron finally queried.  "Only, I don't fancy getting caught after hours in Dumbledore's rooms.  They'd think we were both impostors."

Draco winced silently, because he was trying to avoid thinking what might have happened to his own Ron Weasley.  _This Ron was just closer – my Patronus found the closest one._ Or: _This Ron is the proper Ron Weasley of this world – my Patronus found the Ron Weasley who belongs here._

Anything to avoid thinking that Patroni couldn't carry messages to the dead.

"Malfoy?"

Draco shook his head free, focusing on the job at hand.  " _Accio books on Horcruxes._ "

Ron ducked as several books flew from various locations in the room, landing in Draco's outstretched arms.  One book knocked into an large vase that shimmered strangely; Ron lunged across the room to save it from shattering.

"Not bad, Weasley," Draco murmured.  "You'll make Keeper, yet."

Ron gave him an odd glance, but replaced the vase without another word.  "We'd better get out of here, before –"

"Acid Pops," said a familiar, gravelly voice, and Draco and Ron exchanged panicked glances.

Ron lifted the edge of the cloak and beckoned frantically.  Draco ducked underneath the raised edge of the cloak and Ron dropped it to cover them.  The pair huddled against the wall and the door swung open.

A very familiar set of robes and sensible buckled heels could be seen through the tiny gap in the Cloak.

"Keeping to the Headmaster's tradition?" queried a smooth, deep voice.

"I haven't had the heart to change it," Professor McGonagall replied.

Even to Draco's untrained ear, she sounded pretty broken up.  He tried to imagine what it would be like to take over Hogwarts after such a disaster, and failed.

"No matter how terrible it is, we must think of the future," said the other wizard.  Draco got a peek at the man's features; he was tall and dark-skinned, with a strong jaw and one gold hoop pierced through his right ear.

"Harry will go back home.  Clearly, Hogwarts is not the safest place right now.  We will need to labor all summer to reinforce the wards, to ensure that the Castle can house students in the fall."

"The issue," added the deep, resounding voice, "is returning him to Hogwarts once he turns seventeen."

Professor McGonagall's heels clacked hollowly on the floor as she strode to stand behind the desk.  Draco saw her hand caress the stuffed chair behind it.  She gave a strained little laugh.  "I can't bring myself to sit behind it, yet," she said, apropos of nothing.

There was a space of silence where Ron and Draco scarcely dared to breathe.

"Minerva…"

The elderly witch shook her head.  "Never mind it, Kingsley, of course you're right.  Providing Harry with protection is the issue at hand.  I've thought of it before, of course – Dumbledore and myself discussed it, on numerous occasions.  I believe we will transport Harry to a safehouse of one of the Order shortly before he comes of age.  While many of the Hogwarts staff will be re-working the wards at Hogwarts, I want the most talented witches and wizards doing the same to the homes of all the Order."

"Won't that alert the Death Eaters?"

The Professor's voice firmed.  "That's as may be, but the time for hiding is past.  It is unlikely we will be able to keep our covers now that we are in the middle of out-and-out war.  It is better they wonder which of many houses is holding Harry Potter.  It is better we have warning if someone tries to breach those wards than we sit idly by, hoping that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named does not guess our identities."  She paused.  "Who knows?  In these dark times, heavily warded homes may become… very common."

"I'll get Burbage on finding some good wardsmiths.  What about the boy?"

"I've cast every spell I can think on the boy," McGonagall replied.  "He isn't lying when he says he's not of this world.  The school's magic doesn't recognize him as the Draco Malfoy enrolled here, but every spell I know calls him by name."

It took all of Draco's self-control not to make a sound.  He found Ron's arm and dug into it with his fingernails to prevent the other boy from doing the same.

"Did He send him?"

McGonagall shook her head.  "It wouldn't appear so, but we can never be too cautious.  I'm placing him in the same protective custody as Harry."

"That means the real Malfoy is still out there," Kingsley said, eyes narrowing.

"I'm afraid so.  I would like you to delegate locating Mister Malfoy to Moody."

"Moody, Professor?  Isn't that a bit of overkill?"

"Hardly."  Professor McGonagall placed both fists atop Dumbledore's desk and leaned forward.  "Draco Malfoy has information about Snape, information about Dumbledore's death.  We must find that boy before we move forward."

"I understand."  Kingsley's voice softened.  "Try to get some sleep – Headmistress.  It's an important day tomorrow."

McGonagall waved her hand at Kingsley, who made a motion someplace between a nod and a bow and exited, closing the door behind him.

Professor McGonagall wandered over to sit on the wrong side of the desk.  For a long minute, she stared at the empty chair.

Then she placed her head in her hands.

Draco looked over at Ron to find that the redhead's own eyes were welling with tears as he watched his Head of House.  Draco knew what it was like to watch his own Head of House in the middle of a breakdown.  He remembered it as though it were minutes rather than days ago, that urge to throw himself at Snape's feet and swear to do anything to make things right.

Draco wasn't very good at comforting people, but he managed to relocate the hand that had been gripping Ron's upper arm to his knee and squeeze.

Ron turned to stare, and Draco gave his best sympathetic look.  He hadn't been all that fond of the old geezer, it was true, but watching the stalwart McGonagall dissolve into tears was terrible.  Watching Ron in tears was terrible too, in its way.

The new Headmistress cried only for a few minutes.  Very rapidly, her tears slowed, then stopped altogether.  She wiped at her eyes, gave a heroic sniffle, and exited the office.

Draco and Ron waited another full minute under the cloak before lifting it and standing.

"Well?"  Ron wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Well, what?"

"Aren't you going to say anything – aren't you going to say how hopeless we have it, if even our Headmistress can't keep it together?"

Draco looked up in surprise.  "It looks pretty hopeless, I'll grant you that.  But it isn't as though quitting is an option.  And I don't like that plan she was laying out."

"The plan where they lock you up?  I'll bet you don't."

Draco rolled his eyes.  "Bloody _brilliant_ , pick the one useless thing out of that whole lot!"

"You're shouting," said Ron, in a much smaller voice.

"Sorry," Draco murmured, contrite.  "Come on, let's get out of here before McGonagall decides she's forgotten something."

They descended the staircase, Ron carrying the cloak in one hand, Draco carrying the stack of books.  After a moment, Draco gave up on discretion and rolled his eyes in the most dramatic way he knew how.

"That's a _stupid_ plan.  Come on, Weasley, find one of the many holes in it."

Ron blinked.  "Well – all right, then.  Why is Harry going back to Privet Drive in the first place?"

Draco nodded vigorously, and would have pointed if his hands weren't full.  "Exactly.  I'm not saying he wouldn't be safer there, but only for the time being.  Eventually he's going to have to go off in search of the Horcruxes.  Why would he wait?"

"It's the Trace," Ron said.  "Harry might be able to leave Privet Drive, but he wouldn't be able to defend himself without the Ministry trying to arrest him."

"There's got to be a way to remove the Trace," Draco countered.  "That's what we should really be working on.  If we know where a Horcrux is, we should get it _now_ , before it moves!"

"There probably is a way," Ron agreed.

"Maybe your father would know something.  He works in the Ministry, after all."

Ron looked at him askance.  "Maybe, but I doubt he'd tell me."

"The information must be somewhere –"

All of a sudden, the books in Draco's hands yanked to the left.  When Draco clasped them to his chest, they pulled more insistently.

"Weasley!"

"What are they doing?  Are they possessed?"

"I don't know!"

For a moment, the two boys wrestled with the Horcrux books, and then finally Ron shook his head and laughed.  "Someone's Summoned them!"

" _Granger_ ," Draco said.  He took an unsteady breath.  "Let them go, for now.  Let her have them."

"Malfoy –"

"Trust me, Weasley, and let them go."

Ron released the books, and the two boys watched them zoom down the hallway and out of sight like loosed birds.

"Why…?"

Draco turned to him.  "I've had an idea, that's why."  Draco worried his lower lip between his teeth.  "Did you tell anyone else you were coming to the Wing to talk to me?"

Ron shook his head.

"Brilliant," Draco replied with a wide grin.  "All right, you need to research the Trace.  Don't borrow any books from the library, just take notes.  If anyone asks, you're doing a Potions assignment."

"I quit Snape's class after fifth year," Ron returned.

"Astronomy, Arithmancy… something difficult, but other than that, it doesn't matter what.  Sneak into the Restricted Section if you must, but for Merlin's sake don't let anyone see you entering or leaving.  And above all, _don't_ ask a professor for permission."

"I could nick the Invisibility Cloak again, and do the research tomorrow night," Ron offered with a frown.  "But I still don't understand."

"Potter's guardians mean well by trying to give him more time to prepare, but they're not being very clever," Draco replied.  "The Death Eaters'll know Harry's not safe anymore after his birthday…"  When Ron eyed him warily, Draco scoffed.  "Come now, hasn't the surprise worn off _yet_?  Of course Harry told me about his mother's protection spell…"  _I could feel it when his bindings lashed around me: warm, and dark, and heart's-blood red._

"The surprise will _never_ wear off, Malfoy," Ron darkly replied.

"In any case," Malfoy went on, with a sharp glare at Ron, "they'll be expecting that he'll move, then.  Why oblige them?"

Ron crossed his arms over his chest.  "Don't you think the Order's thought of that, Malfoy?  I mean, some of them fought in the first war.  What makes you think that your plans are better than theirs?"

"Because, Dumbledore's primary mission wasn't to end the Dark Lord," Draco said, and watched Ron both wince a bit at the Dark appellation.  "It was to make sure _Harry_ was ready to end Him.  I think that's the problem: Dumbledore has a schedule.  _Had_ a schedule," he corrected with an apologetic glance, "and that schedule revolved around Harry.  But there's no rule saying we've got to follow it."

Draco could see Ron was wavering, so he pressed on:

"What we need to do is move long before anyone suspects it.

"Now."

Ron's head jerked up.

"Well, not _tonight_ , obviously," Draco allowed, examining his nails.  "I'll need a bit of recovery time; I'm still weak.  That'll give me the time to brew an advance supply of my daily potion, Madam Pomfrey said it was cheap and easy to brew, which means the ingredients I'd need are probably in the Potions lab right now.  Oh yes, and we'll need a way of dampening the Trace… or removing it entirely."

"I'm of age," Ron said.

Playing for time again, Draco knew.  He watched with a half-smile as Ron's eyes darted, his thoughts moving just as quickly as Draco's own.

"As am I," Draco replied.  "As is Granger.  The only one who _isn't_ –"

"…is Harry himself," Ron finished.  "So of course they won't be expecting him to leave before his birthday… that's kind of brilliant, leaving long before anyone suspects we might."

"Well; and I thought of it.  What did you expect?"  Draco looked up with a conspiratory grin, only to find that Weasley was looking at him oddly, again.

"Sorry," Ron said with a duck of his head.  "Reckon your Ron and you were, uh, friends…?"

This was more of a concession than Draco had expected from the other boy.  "I don't mean to forget who you are," he finally replied.  "If you'll forgive me for the one, I'll forgive you for the other."

Ron's lips twitched.  "So, er… reckon you want me to get Hermione's help and try to find out –"

Draco shook his head and held up one hand.  "No; she's busy studying the Horcruxes; let her, we'll need all of that information as well, and the fewer who know about this, the less chance it'll leak.  I need you to be in the library doing that research on the Trace."

"But I'm rubbish at research," Ron said, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck, a gesture which Draco had long since translated as _embarrassed_ , and entered into the Ronald Weasley Lexicon of Incomprehensibilities.  "Hermione would really be better at –"

"Merlin, Ron!" Draco snapped.  "What if Hermione Granger falls into a bog?"

Ron stared.  "What?"

"Or, I don't know, bumps her head, and all the legions of nonsense she's read _fall out_!  You can't seriously mean to say that you – you – you –"

"Steady on, mate," Ron muttered, and clasped Draco's shoulder.

Draco looked down at the hand, then back up at Ron, who withdrew the offending appendage.

"Sorry," Ron said.  "I didn't mean – it's just, you've got a point, only I figure I'll miss something.  Hermione's always the one who makes the brilliant leaps."

Draco blinked.  "The Ronald Weasley I know beat a chess puzzle McGonagall constructed when he was only eleven.  Not much gets past him."

Ron quirked a grin.  "Well – I mean, I did that, too, but..."

Draco's lips thinned in determination, and his jaw firmed as he stared into Ron's features.  "He was the only one who knew I'd taken the Mark screaming all the way.  Harry and Hermione thought I'd defected, but he knew.  He knew with one look at me."

Ron swallowed.  "That wasn't –"

"Yes, I know," Draco replied, not taking his gaze off of Ron, needing his help and needing to make him understand.  "But I think it easily could've been.  And I think you're more than capable of finding the true information and sorting it from the dross.  In fact, I think it's kind of your thing, knowing what's real and what isn't."

Ron looked up, and there was a strange, high emotion running in his eyes that Draco could not interpret.  He cleared his throat.  "So, when do we talk to Harry?" he said, finally, voice determined.

"Here's the thing," Draco said, as the beginnings of a wicked smile tugged at his lips.  "We don't.  We're going to kidnap the Savior of the Wizarding World."

* * *

A/N:OH MY GOSH GUYS I AM SO SORRY.

I EVEN EDITED THIS CHAPTER AND SOMEHOW IT DISAPPEARED.  I AM FULL OF WOE.

All right, I know it was a very short one, but how can you NOT stop a chapter right there?

Doing some vanity searching, I found that tv-tropes lists _Secret of Slytherin_ as an aversion of the 'Ron the Death Eater' trope, complete with the 'you two sure do turn on a knut, don't you?' line. Lolz.  TV Tropes is how you know you've made it Big Time.  ;)

Weirdly, the original author's notes had another note about a chapter being deleted, except it was the last chapter of SoS that had been.  Apparently happens all the time... TO ME.

Thanks for the reviews last time, everyone!  You really do encourage and inspire me.  :D

 

-K


	7. Chapter 7

Draco waited, and did his best to recuperate, and planned the capture of the locket Horcrux with what could only be called obsessive attention to detail.  He knew that if Ron did not return with the information on the Trace soon, he and Ron would have to go to the Manor without Harry or Hermione, and hope to add them to their party later.

Draco feared, though, that if the taking of the locket at the Manor went wrong somehow, he and Ron would keep running, never able to return to Hogwarts.  This was a fear he hadn't shared with Ron.  Already, he was having difficulty with the very concept of Ron divorced from Hogwarts: Ron was so clannish, so devoted to those he had chosen, that it was hard to imagine Ron existing without all the members of that clan around him.

It was on the fifth day since Draco had returned to Hogwarts that Ron sneaked into the Hospital Wing looking pink with self-congratulation.  "I've got it!" he exclaimed, waving a paper through the air over his head.  "I've found it, Malfoy, look!"

Draco examined the paper, which was printed on official Ministry letterhead, detailing a potion meant to mask the Trace until the original spell had expired.

"How…?"

Ron's eyes flashed with triumph.  "It's like you said before: I asked my father," he admitted.  "Well… after days of searching through all kinds of spellbooks, I started thinking, _who else would want to get rid of the Trace_ …?  And finally, _who'd_ need _to get rid of the Trace…?_   And of course it's kids who don't want their parents Tracing them."  He sobered, smoothing the paper between his fingers.  "So I asked my Dad about Family Services."

Draco digested this for a moment.  "I wasn't aware that parents could track their own children using the Trace."

Ron glanced up from underneath his lashes and bobbed his head.  "They can't, not legally, of course, but it's not like _legal_ 'd matter to wizards who… anyhow, once I'd explained the whole thing to Dad, he nicked the potion recipe from Family Services and Floo'd it over right away."

"Arthur Weasley knows about the plan?"

Ron had the temerity to look affronted.  "Well, 'course he does!  I couldn't very well ask him for the spell that removes the Trace without explaining why I needed it, and once I said I needed it for Harry, he naturally wanted the whole story.  Besides," he tacked on with a censorious frown, "I couldn't disappear without letting on to the family where I was headed!  They'd think I'd been captured by the Death Eaters or, like Mum says, _dead in a ditch somewhere_!"

Draco suppressed the urge to put his head in his hands.  "If you'll remember, Ronald, that was somewhat the point."

"Don't call me _Ronald_ in that tone of voice," Ron ordered with a grimace.  "You sound _just like Hermione_.  Besides, Mum and Dad can keep a secret."

"You told Mrs. Weasley as well?" Draco squeaked.  "She'll kill me!"

Ron's expression turned wry.  "I haven't told her _yet_ , I'm not entirely barmy," he said.  "Dad's going to let her in on it before she goes mad with worry but after Hogwarts has broken the news.  Dad says her reaction'll be more genuine that way."

"Which was the _point_ in not telling anybody," Draco protested.  "To confuse the Death Eaters into thinking someone on their side _had_ captured us, to buy us some time before anyone on their side begins to search."

"You keep saying you know me so well," Ron said, crossing his arms over his chest.  "Didn't you know I'd tell someone in my family?"

Draco sighed gustily, giving in to the urge to wipe one tired hand down his face.  " _Yes_ ," he admitted.  "At least, I reckoned you might try.  Merlin, this is going to make things so much more difficult."

"Why does it have to?" Ron pressed.  "Dad won't say anything 'til it's time.  He may seem a little funny with his Muggle obsession and all, but Dad's a tough nut to crack."

"Obfuscating stupidity must run in the family," Draco muttered.

Ron did him the kindness of pretending not to hear.

Draco eyed the recipe written on the piece of paper in an officious-looking hand.  "The process is simple, but the ingredients aren't common.  Buying them would raise some alarms.  I think we're going to have to steal them from Snape's stores."

"Snape's stores?" Ron echoed, wide-eyed.  "Word is, he warded his offices and even his classroom to the nines.  Not even the Headmistress can get in."

"Snape suspected he would send me back to Hogwarts even before he left," Draco said, "so I respectfully disagree.  Snape would have set his rooms to open through the use of a very simple key, one that someone who knew him well would already possess."  He smiled.  "Like a beozar to cure a seemingly complex poison."

Ron stared at him for a long moment, looking slightly suspicious; but then he nodded.  "Supposing that Snape thought he could trust anyone at Hogwarts at all.  Even if you're right and he was looking after Harry all this time," Ron went on, an expression of greatest doubt in every line of his face, "he played his part really, _really_ well.  To have left a simple key like that, he'd have to've believed that someone would come to unlock the spell who knew him well enough to find the key and trusted him enough to look."

Draco had to admit, at least privately, that Ron had a point.  "Regardless, we have to try."

So it was that ten minutes to midnight found them creeping downstairs, the dimmest _Lumos_ Draco could manage shimmering at the tip of his wand.

"Hermione's started asking me how late I've been staying up," Ron confided as they made their way down the dungeon hallways and towards Snape's rooms.  "She wonders why I keep sleeping through my classes."

"She'll be proud once she realizes it's all been in the name of research," Draco said; and then they were standing in front of the door to Snape's office.

Bright yellow tape had been pulled across the doorway to discourage any curious student from attempting entrance.  The nature of the door itself precluded any attempt at physically working around the spell; it had no handle, and was made of thick, seasoned oak.

"Well?" Ron said, wrapping his arms around himself.  "Hurry it along, now… I don't like this place one bit."

"Snape isn't here to give you detentions –" Draco began, but Snape's voice cut through their chatter.

" _Mister Weasley and Mister Malfoy,_ " emanated from the door in Severus's booming, disdainful tones.  " _What a surprise, may I say, to see the pair of you working together?  Are you colluding against Potter?  How extremely satisfactory._ "

"Don't move," Draco said, reaching out to grab at Ron's upper arm.  "It's not him, he's got no idea we're here.  He's infused a bit of himself in the door is all, like a portrait."

" _Clever, very clever, Mister Malfoy.  Though you always were one of the cleverer ones.  One wonders why you'd bother with a clot like Weasley at all._ "

"Hey!" Ron shouted.  To Draco's surprise, he was flushed red as his hair.

"We're looking to get inside, if you please," Draco said, sliding in between Ron and the door, which so far had shown no other signs of Snape-like behavior… but there was no telling whether Snape had felt vindictive enough to Charm it to reach out an arm to throttle any lackey of Harry Potter.

" _A protective gesture?_ "  Snape's voice sounded just as shocked as the man himself would.  " _In a Malfoy, that's something else.  Does he owe you Galleons, Draco?  A Life-Debt, perhaps?  Men such as we would never protect a Gryffindor, otherwise._ "

Draco felt himself pale; he opened his mouth, but no rejoinder would come.

"You shut your filthy gob!" Ron growled.  "You don't get to say anything about us… you ran away, you _coward_ , at least we've stuck around to see this through to the end _._ "

Snape cackled, a weird, desperate laugh that raised all the hairs on Draco's arms.  " _I, a coward?  Those who know the least convey their ignorance most volubly,_ " he declared with a familiar sardonic lilt.  " _You understand nothing,_ " it added, and then fell silent.

"So, do you open with a password?  That'd make the most sense," Draco mused, staring at the closed door.  "An actual, physical key would require searching, and you're nothing if not practical.  What sort of word would you use?  Not _Horcrux_ , certainly: not a word that Harry would think might be the key, this version of you wouldn't trust him with your things.  Not to mention all of the Death Eaters who'd know that word.  Something only someone on the side of the Light would know was important, something your Harry wouldn't guess at in a million years…"  Draco's lips parted in surprise, and he nodded.  " _Lily_?"

No noise whatsoever came from the door, and for a long moment Draco feared that the spirit of Snape had fallen away after being grievously insulted, and might not ever return if it sensed him there.

But finally, a low moan emitted from the door as it swung open, so low it was impossible to distinguish between the voice of the man and the creaking of the hinges.  " _How would you of all people know?_ " Snape's voice whispered, and was gone.

" _Lily_?" Ron echoed in dismay, staring at the open doorway.

"He and Harry's mum were good friends at school," Draco said distractedly, stepping across the threshold, "but then they had some sort of a falling-out.  Harry asked Snape if he were ever in love with her a couple of times, but he'd never give Harry a straight answer.  _Lumos_."

The entire room lit, and Ron hastily closed the door behind them to block the light.  "The idea of Snape and _anybody_ –"

"Hush, he'll hear you," Draco cautioned, though he was relatively certain they'd exorcised the door.  But he didn't mind scaring Ron just a little if it meant he'd shut his insulting gob once in awhile.

Snape's offices showed no sign that their occupant had rushed away in a hurry.  On the contrary, everything was in its place, from the stack of graded papers (bisected with comments such as _if you were anywhere further from correct, Mister Dezume, accuracy should be a foreign country_ ) to the cloak hanging neatly by the door (thick, dark, woolen) to the state of his personal potions cabinet (locked, but with the key fitted; no one could enter the room without Snape's say-so, and greater caution would have verged on paranoia.)

"He knew he was going," Ron observed, which just went to show that he wasn't half so foolish as Snape liked to imagine.

Draco said nothing.  He moved to the elaborate, teak-wood potions cabinet, which was not Severus's style at all.  As he turned the key, he saw a tiny inscription around the lock casement:

_To Severus Snape, on the Conferring of his Mastery in Potions-Making,_

_from one who is ever his friend_

Draco shook his head and turned the tiny brass knob to open the cabinet.

"Not that it proves anything," Ron muttered, eying the room as though he thought Snape might pop up from a piece of furniture at any moment.  "He could've known about the attack for a long time beforehand, whichever side he was on."

"The less you insult Severus Snape, the better we'll get along," Draco growled, consulting the list and withdrawing potions ingredients with a speed more fueled by anger than sense.

"Sorry," Ron said, reaching out to steady a particularly fragile-looking, slender bottle.  "I know he was your Head of House and all –"

"I betrayed him and he spared me," Draco cut in.  "I owe him everything.  Him and Harry.  Just – I know that this Snape isn't the one who helped me, but –"

"All right," Ron said.  "Sorry.  I didn't mean anything by it."

Draco sketched a jerky nod.  "Here.  Make sure we've got everything.  If we do, we should brew the potion now."  He looked up at Ron and raised his brows expectantly.

"Now," Ron echoed.  "Now?  As in, _everything_ now?  As in, go get Hermione and Harry and –"  He paused, and gulped.

"You can do this," Draco said, watching Ron panic with surprise.  "You came up with half of this plan, you think it's brilliant, we agreed it's the best idea – "

"I know, I know all that," Ron said.  "I just – what if I lose them?  What if they won't forgive me?  What if Hermione finds a flaw, a really _obvious_ one, and we've made some sort of stupid, irredeemable mistake?"  He stared at Draco, and his features twisted, suddenly.  "What if they won't accept that you are who you say?  What if they want you in _Azkaban_ …?"

"What if you panic utterly and have a seizure," Draco deadpanned.  "Breathe, Weasley.  Harry and Hermione are good people, and they adore you, wouldn't know what to do without you.  They'll forgive you, even if it's just for the sake of expedience at first.  We haven't _made_ a mistake, we've been through our plans over and over.  And Azkaban _will not happen_.  I'll run before that happens, I'm not some Gryffindor martyr."  He stared at Ron for one, hard moment.  "If you can't do this, we'll think of some other way.  You're clever, I'm brilliant, we'll figure a way to –"

"No," Ron interjected.  "No, you're right.  Just… you start with the potion and I'll grab Harry and Hermione, and… I'll meet you at Grimmauld.  Do you remember?"

"The Order of the Phoenix is at twelve, Grimmauld Place," Draco recited.

Ron stared at him wildly, then clasped Draco to him in a crushing hug so brief that if not for his creaking spine, Draco might have thought he'd imagined it, and disappeared down the hallway.

"Well, then," Draco said, clearing his throat.  He rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

 

Ron's signal came in the form of his Patronus, trotting about nervously, tip of its tail wagging.  It opened its mouth and Ron's voice emerged: _it's done._

Draco looked around Snape's offices – _the Potions-Master's offices_ , he supposed he should say: they were not Snape's anymore.  Still, he could not help the respect with which he replaced the depleted ingredients, the care with which he closed and locked the cabinet.  Draco was certain that, if Snape were to return to this place, he would want to be sure that the cabinet, at least, was in the condition he had left it.

He turned and took one last look at the office: the chair slightly off-centre, as though Snape had only just pushed it away to stand; the tie lying on the coat-rack, as though its owner might reclaim it at any moment.  He gently joined the door to the jamb.

"I found what I was looking for," he said to the door, in hopes; but the spell was broken.  It did not respond.

Draco hurried down the corridor, up the stairwell, out of the Castle and into the balmy night.

Cicadas chirruped into the darkness, and the stars shone clear above.  He paused on the threshold, standing between civilization and wilderness, and suffered a moment of crippling doubt.  He told himself that he was confident in his plan to bring Severus and Granger and Lupin and Harry together again, all those people who'd contributed to the original spell.  It was only that his goal seemed too faraway to be real for an instant, like it lay somewhere beyond the field before him, leagues of inhospitable ground in between.

He shook his head, shivering despite the warmth of the air, cast his best Disillusionment spell, and Disapparated.

 

When Ron had told Draco that Grimmauld Place was an old Black residence, Draco had to admit he'd pictured something more like Malfoy Manor and less like Spinner's End.  The way that Number Twelve shoved aside the crumbling facades of numbers Eleven and Thirteen as Draco approached was far more impressive than the crumbling walkway, dingy steps and a battered front door that seemed as though it had seen a great number of attempted break-ins or even battles over the years.

As Draco stood on the steps, the sensation that had assaulted him as he departed Hogwarts reared again, and for long moments he stood, feeling as though he'd forgotten why he'd come, forgotten why gaining Harry's and Hermione's trust all over again was so important.  It was only at the thought of Ron inside, panicking, that Draco shook himself free of the ruinous hesitancy and pressed forward.

The door had a knocker but no handle: typical in homes of the more aristocratic pureblood families, where the very idea of a Muggle coming calling was unthinkable.

" _Alohomora_ ," Draco whispered, although there was no one on the dark street at such an hour.

Suddenly, there was a hollow sussurus as all of the dirt and dust and pebbles dragged across the porch to amass at Draco's feet, then swelled to the form of a taller and far angrier vision of Albus Dumbledore.  Draco stumbled back, then brought his wand to bear with both hands.

 _You murdered me in cold blood,_ the apparition accused from a gaping maw filled with shifting dirt and dust.  _It was by your hand.  YOURS!_

"I – no, no, it wasn't me –" Draco stammered.

The vision collapsed, fell, releasing a cloud of airborne dust that made Draco cough.  "Whose _fool_ idea was…?" he demanded, when a hand reached for his shirtfront and yanked him within the house.

Draco blinked to adjust to the bright lamps in the foyer of Grimmauld Place, still hacking up dust.  Ron stood beside him, fairly vibrating with anxiety.

"Everything all right?" Draco asked, attempting to beat the dust out of his dark cloak.

"All right?" Ron demanded incredulously.  "There's a dusty Dumbledore out there accusing us of murder!"

"Easy, Ron," Draco said, sighing with relief, gaze touching on the gas lamps, the threadbare runner, the peeling wallpaper in the dingey entryway.  "It's probably set to do that anytime someone tries the door."

Ron threw his hands into the air.  "Well… whose _fool_ idea was it to - ?"

"Did you bring them?"

Ron rubbed the back of his neck with one hand; Draco saw that the area was already bright pink and somewhat abused-looking.  "Yeah.  They're downstairs in the kitchens."  Ron nodded to Draco and they began moving down the dusky, ill-lit hallway.  "You get the potion for the Trace?"

Draco rummaged in his pocket and held it aloft as Ron moved ahead of him down the stairs.

"Reckon we'll have to wake him up before we give it to him.  You know, so he won't choke."

Two figures were laid on the stone floor by the scrubbed-wood table, pillows under their heads, breathing even.  "I half-expected you to call me with your Patronus," Draco allowed.  "I'm… reluctantly impressed how easily you managed."

"It's not so much my skill as their…"  Ron ducked his head and scrubbed at the back of his neck again.  "As the fact that _they trust me_."

"So you say," Draco replied.  "I say a Death Eater could've taken them just this easily; and it's a good thing it was us, instead.  It's a good thing that those two soft-hearted, soft-headed Gryffindors have the two of us looking after them."

Ron offered up a reluctant grin, but the pleased expression died when Hermione twitched in her sleep.  "They're awfully peaceful-looking like this," Ron observed.  "Suppose we keep them that way?"

Draco barked a laugh, then shook his head.  "Tempting, but no."

When Ron reached up to rub the back of his neck again, Draco snagged his wrist mid-gesture.

"They will forgive you," he said, solemnly.  "It's part of their particular brand of foolishness, and it spilled over until it got to me, so I understand."  He licked his lips.  "Look, do not ask me to repeat this because I will deny it, but there is _nothing_ you could do that they wouldn't forgive you."  _That I couldn't forgive you_ , he thought, and Ron must've felt something of that through _Necto fides_ , because his eyes went wide and he nodded, jaw squared and eyes intent.

"Best if you sit on the stairs a mo," Ron said.  "You don't want to be here for the initial Potter tantrum, believe you me."

Draco shrugged.  "I know Harry Potter," he said with a private smile.  "Drama washes on over me."

Still, Ron waited until Draco was well out of sight before drawing his wand.  He turned to look towards the darkened staircase, where Draco waved him forward.

"Come along, these Horcruxes don't find themselves, you know."

Ron blew out a whoosh of breath and brought his wand to bear.  " _Finite incantatem_."

Harry and Hermione both stirred, Hermione rubbing the back of her head.  Draco, watching from the stairway, was somewhat impressed with the speed with which the pair took in their surroundings and rolled to their feet, wands aloft.  He revised his initial certainty that a Death Eater could've taken them by surprise.

"What happened?" Hermione whispered, scanning the room.  "Ron, are you all right?"

Of course she would ask that, Draco thought as Ron's features screwed up with guilt.  She'd assume the three of them had been captured together…

"It's Snape," Harry hissed, green eyes flashing.  "He's taken us here to do Merlin knows what… but we'll get back to Hogwarts, we just need to leave Grimmauld so we can Apparate…"

Draco swallowed an instinctive protest.  He and Ron had chosen Grimmauld Place in part because it was Unplottable, meaning that the Ministry wouldn't be able to find Harry even if he did panic and use magic.  But Ron was going to have to talk fast if he didn't want Harry to simply sneak away and return to Hogwarts, undoing all their hard work.

"No, listen, Harry.  Hermione."  Ron gulped, audibly, then wrapped both arms around himself.  "It's me.  I've brought you here."

The pair froze in their frenzied preparations to leave.  Hermione lifted an anxious hand to her hair, sweeping it behind one ear.  Draco's heart clenched in his chest to see the girl echo a gesture that his Hermione had outgrown.

"But Ron," she said, "that – that doesn't make any sense.  We were Stunned.  Why would you Stun us - why wouldn't you _ask_ us to come to Grimmauld?"  She looked swiftly around the darkened kitchens, her posture pulling in, becoming defensive.

Draco could imagine what she was thinking.  There was nothing in the dirty table, the cavernous space, or general gloom of Grimmauld Place to inspire confidence.  The decision to start there was utterly mad, but that was part of what made it a good choice: the fact that no one should suspect they'd decided to.

Ron hunched a bit, too, like he was expecting a blow.  "That's the thing, see?  It had to look like a kidnapping, like you were taken against your will.  I even cut off a bit of your hair, Hermione, and left it on the floor by your bed."  He shrugged.  "Sorry.  But if it looks like you struggled a bit, missed the end of a slicing hex, even better."

"You're still not making any sense, Ron," Hermione protested.

"Let him finish," Harry said.  "You intend for us to leave right now, don't you?  For the Horcruxes…"

Ron's head raised and he nodded, looking relieved that Harry understood so quickly.  "Yeah.  Before the Death Eaters suspect."

"…and you're planting evidence that we were captured," Hermione tacked on, eyes lighting up.  "The Death Eaters won't search for us for days, yet, if we're lucky!"

Ron flushed at the implicit praise, and didn't protest when Hermione took Ron's hand up in hers in her excitement.

"But the Trace," Harry said.  "The Ministry'll know just where we are."

"Twelve Grimmauld Place is Unplottable, which means that you can do all the magic you like, here," Ron explained.  "But I hope you won't want to…  Thing is, there's been someone helping me, and he's brewed a potion that'll remove the Trace."

Hermione's face fell.  "You never mentioned asking for anybody's help until now.  Ron…"

"And this someone is here, now," Harry said, eyes narrowing.

Ron reached his hand up to scrub the back of his neck, then arrested the gesture mid-motion, letting his hand fall uselessly to his side.  "Yes," he replied, "and you'll have to give me your solemn word you'll let him explain before you hex his bits off."

Draco took a steadying breath and moved down the stairwell and into the kitchen, from shadow into light.  He strode until he stood beside Ron, chin lifted, hands clasped behind his back.  "Well?" he said.  "Let the accusations of madness begin."

Neither Potter nor Granger appeared to be in the mood to make any sort of accusation.  They were too busy being gobsmacked.

Finally, " _Draco Malfoy_ , Ron?" Hermione screeched.  "Have you lost your mind?"

Draco smiled and rolled his eyes.  "...and there it is."

"I haven't lost my mind," Ron shot back.  "It's – he's promised not to harm me, or you, under _Necto fides_.  He's trustworthy."

" _Trustworthy_ ," Hermione echoed, and her tone of voice had gone from hysterical to glacial in five seconds.  "I cannot believe you'd risk us – risk the _entire war_ – on the word of Draco Malfoy!"

Draco snorted, then waved both hands in the air when Hermione rounded on him.  "Sorry!  I just –"

"I was expecting Snape," Harry said, unexpectedly and commandingly enough to stop the other three in their tracks.  He turned considering eyes on Draco.  "I was expecting Snape to be the one who'd contacted Ron.  Someone who can make a potion that'd get rid of the Trace?  So I was expecting him.  Not you."

Draco raised his eyebrows at Harry.  "Sorry to disappoint."

"I'm not disappointed," Harry replied.  "Puzzled, though."

"You're not – angry?"  This from Ron, who was staring hopefully at his friend.

"No," Harry replied.  "No, still puzzled.  Would anyone like a cup of tea?"  He plucked a kettle from a cabinet and held it aloft.

It was Draco's turn to gape.  "Have you been possessed by the spirit of Albus Dumbledore?  Tea is not what we need, no more than we need lemondrops or warm socks!  Granger and Ron and myself need to talk; you, I suspect, need to shout at the top of your voice…"

Harry paused, back turned to Draco as he put the kettle on the hob.  Then his motions resumed.  "And now I'm sure," he said.  "Sit down.  I've got something I need to say."

"Harry!" Hermione protested.  "This is the Draco Malfoy who let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, who broke your nose on the Express, who's called me a Mudblood –" Draco couldn't help but wince – " – every chance he got!  I'm not sure how you expect me to sit down with him without a little bit of explanation!"

"All right," Harry said.  "What if I were to tell you that this _isn't_ that Draco Malfoy?"

Draco looked up in surprise, and found that Harry Potter was looking him in the eyes for the first time.

"The thing about Dumbledore and his socks cinched it, as if Ron trusting you wasn't already enough."

Draco slumped as blackness crackled across his vision.  "You – know me?"

"Not personally.  I mean – I don't know you.  I just know _of_ you.  Sorry," he tacked on, looking uncomfortable.

Ron was staring at Harry in amazement.  "But how'd you figure there were two of them?  He had to tell me, and I still didn't really –"

"I'm not that clever, Ron," Harry said with a rueful smile.  "It's just that someone told me to expect him."  He turned to Draco.  "And to help him however I could."

Draco gripped the edges of the kitchen's huge, wooden table with both hands.  "The Ron from my world.  Is he here?"

Ron looked up.  "You mean there's two of _me_?"

"Anytime you'd like to let me in on what's going on," Hermione contributed dryly.

"I don't know where he went," Harry said, looking unhappy that he couldn't provide Draco with more information.

"That doesn't make any sense," Draco pressed.  "I made him promise to look after you.  Not knowing you were _you_ at the time, but still…  He wouldn't break that promise, especially where you were concerned."

Ron cleared his throat.  "Let me get this straight.  This… other Ron… made a promise to you to look after Harry.  What were you meant to be doing?"

"I was meant to be looking after Snape," Draco replied, then sighed at the trio's stares of amazement.  "It appears your relationship with the man hasn't altered since fifth-year, so let me assure you that he is a human being, and that he is in terrible danger, and that he is more likely to look after others than himself.  I owe him a Life-Debt, and I still haven't had the chance to repay it."

"Regardless, here _you_ are," Hermione said.  "Not looking after him anymore."  She was looking at Draco as though he were some sort of puzzle, which suited Draco just fine: it was better than her previous attitude, as though he were something she'd scraped off the bottom of her boot.

"I'd been _Crucio_ 'd.  It wasn't my choice to be brought back to the Castle –"

Hermione held up one hand.  "All I'm saying is that circumstances change.  Perhaps the… Ron you know?  Perhaps his circumstances altered as well."

Harry nodded.  "I saw him just after the Battle of Hogwarts.  He put out the fire in Hagrid's hut, saved Fang.  And then, he pulled me past…"  Harry swallowed.  "He got me into the school.  He was so careful with me… there was no way I could've known he wasn't who he said."

"We didn't know where we were," Draco interjected.  "He wasn't trying to pass for your Ron – he thought we were still… home."

"We entered the Castle, met up with Gin," Harry went on, eyes faraway.  "He started looking nervous, asked us where all the students'd come from.  He asked us what day it was.  Me and Gin thought it was shock.  But when we got to the Wing…"

Ron's head jerked up.  "I was already there!"

Harry nodded.  "Right.  And here me and Gin are both getting ready to come in, wands raised, and he stops us, and he says, _no, Harry, I'm the one who doesn't belong_."

Draco leaned forward, awaiting more information, but when it didn't come, he pounded his fist on the wooden table; the other three jumped.  "That's _it_?" he demanded.  "That's all there is?  Where did he go after that?"

Harry shrugged, helplessly.  "He makes me promise not to say a word.  Then he says, _there's another of Draco Malfoy as well, and he's my friend.  He won't have the Mark, and he'll think the sun rises and sets on you.  Please, if you see him, you've got to help him._   Then he was gone."

"Did it even occur to you to use the Marauder's Map?" Draco demanded.

"I did, later," Harry said, "but by then there was only one Ronald Weasley on the Map."

"Easy, mate," Ron said, placing a careful hand on Draco's shoulder.  "In case you'd forgotten, Bill had been all slashed up, Dumbledore'd been _murdered_ , and on top of that, Harry'd talked to my doppelganger.  He was likely in shock, himself."

Draco nodded, and was horrified to feel the prick of tears stinging his eyes as it dawned on him that there was nothing more to tell.  He dashed them away, and when he looked up, Hermione was staring, her expression someplace between incredulity and a blazing focus.

Harry sat across from him.  "I'm sorry that I can't find your friend for you," he said lowly.

Draco laughed.  "Yeah, well.  Lose your best friend in an alternate universe, I expect it happens all the time."  He flushed: he hadn't meant to use the words _best_ and _friend_ in conjunction with Ronald Weasley, but with his magical connection to Harry severed, it was only the truth.

Hermione's eyes sparked with determination.  "Well, Ron, it seems you and – Draco's friend are very similar.  If _you_ were told to look after Harry, what could make you change your mind?"

Ron's brow furrowed in thought, then cleared suddenly.  Just as quickly, his expression darkened again.

"Well?" Hermione exclaimed, leaning forward.  "What is it?"

Ron swallowed.  "Well, I reckon there's only one thing that could drag me away from Harry if he were in trouble, Hermione, and that's you in worse trouble."

"Well that's very sweet, but I can say with relative certainty that I'm not carrying an extra Ronald Weasley in my back pocket."

"Or," Ron said slowly, "if my… other best friend… were in worse trouble."  And he turned to look pointedly at Draco.

"You're saying," Hermione checked, "that he stumbled across the other Draco Malfoy?"

"And realized he was in far worse trouble than Harry, who at least had _someone_ to look after him."

"That really does make sense," Hermione allowed.

Ron gave her a wry smile.  "Always the tone of surprise."

Draco could feel panic rising in his gut.  "But that Malfoy'll hex him in the back and leave him for dead!"

Harry's lips quirked, and then he was laughing, head pillowed in his hands against the flat of the wooden table.  "Sorry!" he exclaimed.  "Sorry, it's just – the thought of our Malfoy – and a Ron convinced they were mates…"

"This is _not_ funny," Draco broke in angrily.  "They really could hurt each other…"

"Nothing worse than a broken nose," Harry interjected with some authority.  "Malfoy couldn't hurt a fly, in the end.  Snape was the one who…"  He instantly sobered.

Draco kept it to himself that he, at least, was capable of murder, when it came to someone he loved.

"The question becomes: where would Ron take Malfoy to hide him?" Hermione posited.  "It would have to be out of the way, maybe Unplottable as well, or at least a place…"

"…where one couldn't Apparate," Draco finished.

"Hogwarts, you mean!" Hermione exclaimed.  "You can't Apparate at Hogwarts; without the Vanishing Cabinet, it's a perfect place to hide…"

"And there's no better place to hide than in plain sight," Ron sighed.  "They'd be able to dodge both sides of the war, hidden there."

"But I checked the Map…" Harry protested.

"You won't have checked the Chamber of Secrets," Draco said.  "It won't be inked on your Map: my Harry discovered the Round Room in his Sixth-Year.  It's the perfect place for Ron to hide.  And the perfect place to keep his promise to me as well.  He could still keep an eye on you."

"Look, mate, we can go back, we can do this whole thing again tomorrow night…"

Draco shook his head.  "The entire point was the element of surprise.  It may be that we've already been discovered missing.  We can't risk it.  If the Death Eaters discover we're gone too early, they may disperse from the Manor."

Hermione gulped.  "Death Eaters?"

Ron straightened in his seat and gave a confident smile reminiscent of the Ron Draco remembered.  "You didn't think our only plan was to get you from Hogwarts to Grimmauld, did you?  Malfoy thinks he's found the Locket, Harry, and we're going to steal it - tonight."

 

* * *

 

A/N:Hey, guys, sorry for the delay... the holidays ate my life!  But here's a New Year's gift from me to you.  :D

Ouch, this one was a toughie to write. I've got to admit, I played with when we'd find out where Ron was, for quite some time. But in the end I decided it didn't matter... all we know is where Ron went initially, he could be anywhere, now... if he had a compelling reason to leave Hogwarts.

Imagining the initial scenes where SoS!Ron tries to help canon!Draco kept me laughing hysterically and clutching at my heart by turns. I wrote several versions of those scenes (years ago) before deciding on what 'really' happens. You'll just have to wait and see for yourselves. ;)

And now, this chapter's rec:

I often think that evil!Dumbledore stories are very poorly written, and I've often thought I'd like to see a *realistic* evil Dumbledore.

Scela Letifer provides one in _Harmatia_ , and how. Not only is this Dumbledore a very scary human being, he's very clever as well; and it's easy to see how the other characters are pressed, often unwitting, into his service. The skill required to create a character who is clearly evil, but nonetheless always seems correct (if not good) to the other characters - believably - is quite a feat.

To say much more would give away the plot, so: excellent story, go google it immediately. It is dark and delicious and creepy and totally believable, which only makes it both more dark and more delicious. Enjoy!

And please review; my muse thanks you!

-K


	8. Limitations

Harry and Hermione and Ron wanted to chat alone, and Draco could hardly blame them for wanting to.

Except that he really, really wanted to be able to.  It felt miserable, being pushed to the side so often, especially since they could all save so much time and energy if they just came to the realization that he was right.  Not _always_ , he allowed as he moved to seat himself on the stairwell that led to the top floor of twelve, Grimmauld Place.  Just most of the time.

From this position, Draco could tell that the Trio was talking.  He could hear Harry's measured tones, Ron's indignant squawks, Hermione's higher-pitched reasonableness threaded through.  He could not, however, hear what they were saying.  Creeping closer held the possibility of being caught.  Draco was a Slytherin, but he was also pragmatic enough to know that the easiest way to seem trustworthy was to _be_ trustworthy, so he stayed put.

At first.  It was their own fault for leaving him to his own devices for so long, he was bored.

Draco moved up the stairs until he'd climbed as high as it was possible to climb within the old manse.  At the top of the stairs were two bedrooms.  One said _Sirius_ in plain lettering; the second held a plaque that read:

_Do Not Enter_

_Without the Express Permission of_

_Regulus Arcturus Black_

<

Draco snickered; the painstaking handwriting, with its curlicues and exaggerated elegance looked like the work of a pureblooded child, proud enough of his name to list first, middle and family.  The only thing missing was glitter and a sticking charm, he thought with a smile, and pushed the door open.

Draco's brows climbed at the sight of the bedroom before him.  Even Draco hadn't hand-painted his family crest above his headboard with painstaking detail.  Draco pressed his fingers to the emblematic _Toujours Pur_ with a frown.  And the articles pasted below… Merlin, some historian would have a field day.  All of Voldemort's first attacks had been documented, laminated, and lovingly Spellotaped beneath the Black family motto.

The rest of the room was draped in silver and green: the rug, the dust-covered coverlet, the heavy curtains…

Draco squinted at a photograph pinned far more haphazardly to the wall in comparison with the neatly laminated news articles.  Leaning forward to examine the picture, he realized it was of the Slytherin Quidditch team, circa nineteen seventy… something.  He recognized more faces than he'd expected, but the small boy front-and-center was certainly related to Sirius Black.  The grey eyes that were Draco's own legacy from the Blacks spoke for him.

"You were the Slytherin seeker," Draco told the boy with his own eyes.  " _Toujours pur_ indeed."

The figures in the portrait, who had seemed listless a moment ago, perked up.  Draco felt a bit sorry for them: it had to've been rather boring, hanging out in this empty shrine to the Black family for so many years.  Draco unstuck the photograph and slipped it into the pocket of his robes; Potter certainly didn't care for anything in this room, if the state of it was anything to go by, and Regulus A. Black was Draco's cousin: if he wanted a picture of him, he could bloody well have it.

Draco turned, and saw Ron standing in the doorway, hands shoved deep in his pockets.  "Are they ready to go?" Draco asked, heart thumping.

When Ron shook his head, Draco felt a combination of relief and surprise, followed quickly by irritation.

"What's keeping them?  If we wait much longer, we may very well miss our opportunity."

"Dunno," Ron said, but he wouldn't meet Draco's eyes, and he seemed to be turning rather pink about the ears.

"Ron," Draco warned.

"If you could call me Weasley, maybe…"

Draco blinked.  "What on earth has that got to do with anything?"

"They're wondering how we got so chummy so fast!" Ron exclaimed suddenly.  "And what with all Hermione said, I'm starting to wonder, too!"

Draco blanched, then turned on one heel so that he could pretend to examine the Black family crest in more minute detail.  He was surprised, but he knew he shouldn't be.  He'd known from the start that this Ron's loyalty was with Harry and Hermione, and frankly he would have been worried, suspicious, or both if it was not.  But the words still cut him, and that made him feel a fool.

It was one of Draco Malfoy's least favorite things to be made to feel a fool, and so his eyes began to follow one of the articles in front of him – _Death Eaters' Death Toll on the Rise_ – without absorbing a word.

His silence seemed to unnerve Ron, who rushed to fill the empty room with justifications.  "Just… look at it from their point of view, all right?  Someone shows up the night Dumbledore is killed looking _just like me_ , and tells Harry to look out for you, right?  Only that person disappears before Harry can learn more about him, if it was Polyjuice, a glamourie, or another Ron, like you say...  And then you show up with just the right formula to cure Bill – and Bill says you stepped right over him during the Battle, and so of course you'd know what to tell Snape to make that would obligate me to you.  And then you come back from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named hurt, all right, but in much better shape than most people, and you make a Binding with me right away.  And you convince me to go along with it, to go along with everything, the Trace, all of it…  And when you go to Harry and Hermione you tell them that there's a time limit, they don't have more than an hour to consider everything…"

Draco didn't dare turn.  He was afraid of what he would see on Ron's face.  "You think I'm him," he said, and the calm sound of his own voice steadied him enough that he felt he could turn to face the other boy.  "You think I'm the one who let the Death Eaters in the Castle…"

If Draco had been hoping that Ron would quickly disavow this statement, he was doomed to disappointment.

"It's all just awfully convenient.  From – from a certain point of view," Ron stammered.

"I'm _nothing like him_ ," Draco hissed.  "I would _never_ – I _couldn't_."

"That's the thing, though," Ron went on, half-apologetic.  "Sometimes – sometimes your way of speaking slips when you get angry, and sometimes your expression, too, and you seem so… but you are him, I mean, you move like him, you talk like him.  You curl your lip just like he does when you're angry."

The expression fell off of Draco's features.

"And you go just as stony.  I mean, the only real difference is that you're not calling the three of us 'Weasel', 'Scar-face' and 'Mudblood' anymore."

Draco nodded, slowly.  "I see.  I suppose I must become used to thinking of both of them as my opponents again, little I may like it."  He nodded once again, sharply.  "Thank you, Weasley.  You've reminded me of a few things."

Ron's lip twisted down, and for a moment Draco felt a stab of pity, though he ruthlessly quashed it.

"Relax," Draco added.  "We're not enemies.  I just need to remember that we're also not – friends."  He clapped Ron on the shoulder and descended the stairs, feeling sick to his stomach with gathering dread.  "Well!" he exclaimed as he lit on the landing, Ron hurrying after him.  "Done discussing my loyalties?  Are we ready to go?"

Harry and Hermione looked up from intense discussion.

"This goes against my better judgment," Hermione said, "but Harry is insistent."

"If the Locket is there, we have to go," Harry said with a nod.  "We can't be sure it's at the Manor, but if there's a chance, we have no choice."

Draco's gaze flickered back and forth between Harry and Hermione.  To his consternation, they didn't even have the same aura of shame that Ron seemed to be carrying around in his flushed features and the hands he wouldn't remove from his pockets.  They looked as though they'd been discussing the weather, not Draco's integrity or lack thereof.

"Are you willing to take a potion I've prepared?" Draco pressed, wanting to provoke a response – anything more than the blank, expectant faces Potter and Granger currently wore.  "If we don't remove the Trace, the Ministry will have you faster than you can say Horcrux."

"We'll have to do the standard hex markers," Hermione replied in lieu of Harry, sticking her hand out in front of her and gesturing.

Draco snorted and dug around in his robes until he found and proffered the tiny phial.

Hermione cast a few spells to detect attempts to do harm.  Although Draco knew several tricky potions that could worm around her checks, he didn't mention them.

Harry took the phial from Hermione's hand and uncorked it.  After giving it a hesitant sniff, he downed the entire phial at one go.  Then he coughed, leaning over with his hands pressed to his thighs.  "Eurgh!" he exclaimed, sticking out his tongue.  "Like… gym socks!"

"How'll we know if it's worked?" Hermione wondered, lips pressed together.

Draco slid a step back as the trio argued, then cast _Tempus_.  "Look, if we don't move soon, we're going to miss our window.  In the end, you trust me enough to go or you don't.  There is no middle-ground."  He forced his voice to sound even and reasonable.  "We're going to Malfoy Manor.  I'll know my way around; you're going to have to let me lead you or this can't work."

Harry frowned, and Hermione looked openly skeptical.

Ron shuffled his feet.

"For Merlin's sake," Draco swore.  "Make up your bloody collective mind."

Harry scanned Draco's features for a long moment, then finally nodded.

The four moved to the porch of Twelve, Grimmauld Place, about to leave the confines of its anti-Apparition wards.  Ron yanked Harry's Invisibility Cloak out of his pocket and handed it to Draco with an apologetic nod in Harry's direction.

Harry was staring at the Cloak fixedly, as though he was worried about it being in Malfoy hands, and Draco recalled vividly telling the other boy he'd burned it.  Back then, everything he thought about Potter had been so jumbled, as much wanting to make Harry react, hurt him until he bled, as it was following the Dark Lord's orders.

But of course, he hadn't really torched the thing, so maybe even then…

He shook his head and threw the cloak across one shoulder.  "I'll have to take you one at a time.  Weasley?"

Ron nodded and approached Draco.

The youngest Weasley boy had chosen to wear dark grey, tight-fitting clothes and a dark woven cap had been pressed down to cover most of his unruly, bright hair.  His eyes were sharp and dark as he gripped Draco by the shoulders.

"Is this a trap?"

" _No_ ," Draco replied, gripping Ron by the elbows.

The redhead shuddered as the answer resounded through _Necto fides_ , and nodded.  "Sorry, mate, but here we are about to Apparate to –"

"I know."  Draco closed his eyes and concentrated, hard, on the Apparition Point at Malfoy Manor.  He'd Apparated plenty of times, but usually on his own.

He didn't let Ron in on this fact.

After a moment of feeling like he'd been squeezed through a tube, he felt his feet hit ground just outside the Manor, in the same, evergreen-studded clearing where he'd arrived with Snape what seemed like a lifetime ago.

Weasley immediately shooed him away, and Draco stepped back as Ron threw the Invisibility Cloak over himself.

Then he Apparated back to Granger, who was pacing the small confines of the porch.

"Here," he said, reaching out for her.

To his surprise, she went quickly, gripping his forearms in hers.  He'd thought it would've taken her longer to reconcile her aversion to the Mark, but she pressed it beneath her hand without so much as a shudder, and tightly closed her eyes.

After Granger, it was Potter – Harry – who quirked a strange smile at him before gripping his forearms tightly with both hands, and laughed.

"What's funny?"

He tilted his head to one side and gave Draco a disconcerting once-over.  "You didn't hesitate."

Draco frowned.  "Potter, as entertaining as your friends may find it to pick apart your sibylline methods of communication –"

"You let me take your _hands_ , Malfoy."

"Without even flinching or losing my lunch," Draco dryly replied.

"You aren't worried I'd sully you with my mother's blood?"

Now Draco did blanch, and he threw Harry's hands down.  "Are you _trying_ to start a fight, Potter?  Insulting your own mother is an interesting opening salvo.  Unconventional, but daring."

Harry flushed, looking a bit guilty for the first time since Draco had met him.  "I'm trying to understand," he replied.  "I can't – _decipher_ you.  I spent all this year following you –"

Draco's brows climbed.  "You what?"

"Because it was clear that you were up to something," Harry pressed on.  "I _know_ you.  This… isn't you," he finished, scanning Draco's form as though he had changed on the spot; as though Harry anticipated he might change back, at any moment.

Draco sighed.  "Believe what you'd like to believe, Potter.  I've no energy to convince you anymore.  You have got two options: you ask me to return to Malfoy Manor and fetch your friends, and I will.  We can go back to Grimmauld and you can suss out another plan to get the Horcrux, one that has a smaller chance of success with every passing moment.

"Or," he went on, "you can let Weasley and I follow through with our plan.  The plan we spent the better part of a week formulating, discussing, working out each and every kink."  He folded his arms and raised his eyebrows leadingly.

"Sorry, Malfoy," Harry said, shaking his head, "but I'm not in the habit of trusting you."  He eyed Draco warily, then wrapped his hands securely around Draco's forearms.

Draco widened his eyes with false solicitude.  "You aren't worried that I'll sully you with all my pure blood?"

Harry snorted, but he also squeezed Draco's arms until the skin around his fingertips bled white, in what felt like a warning.

Draco closed his eyes and Apparated.

In moments, they were all together in the clearing, Ron holding up an edge of the cloak for them to skitter under.  Draco took the lead, with the trio holding on to each other to stay close behind him.  Draco held his hand up so that the gates could register the Mark, and the twisted iron swung wide.

For the first time, true panic gripped him.  What would he do if they didn't all return?  How would he explain it to anyone in the Order if Granger returned but not Weasley, or Weasley but not Granger – or worse, if their boy hero disappeared within the confines of Malfoy Manor?  The Order would accuse him of delivering his credulous classmates to the Death Eaters, and the Order wouldn't be wrong.

He couldn't help but imagine if his Harry and Ron and Hermione had been in their place.  Hermione would have wrapped him in her arms and squeezed, if a little carefully, the way she was always more careful around him than Harry or Ron.  Ron might've told him to run, if the worst happened.

Harry would have gripped him by the shoulders and stared into his face, but he wouldn't have known what to say; finally he would've spouted some nonsense about staying safe and seeing one another again.  Maybe with a brave, we-can't-help-these-things smile tacked on at the end.

It was the first time since the severing that Draco had been able to picture Harry's face with any clarity, but he saw it now: that searching, searing gaze, like Harry was able to see right through Draco and to everything he could be.  He closed his eyes around the image, trying to hold it fast; but it slipped, there and then gone like a flash of lightning in the dark.

"Malfoy!" Ron hissed.

Draco tumbled free of his thoughts with a start.  Jerking a nod to the three crouched behind him, he began to move forward, towards the Manor.  When they reached the doors, he turned to face the trio, who jumbled around him with all of the claustrophobic closeness of four teenagers under one Invisibility Cloak.

"Follow my lead," he said, emphasis on each word, making eye contact with each of the trio in turn.  Even Harry, the most reckless of the three, looked honest and forthright, so Draco nodded.  "Greyback is in my rooms, we'll want to avoid him at all costs; and Mother put me in the Blue room, so I'm willing to bet that Bellatrix is as far from both as can be managed.  That'll be the Silver, Gold, or Azure, on the north end of the Manor."

"Your house has a north and south end," Harry deadpanned.  "I knew there was a reason I didn't like you."

"We can't all grow up in cupboards, Potter," Draco joked, then swallowed at the gutted look Harry shot him.  "Right, then.  Straightforward Stun-and-grab: which of you is best with a Stunner?"

Hermione nodded when the boys turned to her.  "That'd be me."

"Good; you can Stun Lestrange.  Who's best with _Incarcerus_?"

Hermione flushed as Ron elbowed her.  "Er… that'd be me as well."

"Well, it's better if we've two working together," Draco said.  "I'll do the _Incarcerus_.  Then Potter will approach and snap her wand, if it's visible.  And Weasley will take the Horcrux.  If we're separated, we'll use Patroni.  I assume you can all cast under pressure…"

The three nodded again.  "But we won't be separated," Hermione chimed in again.

"Assuming the best, no we won't be.  And assuming the worst, the person who is not caught is to send his Patronus straight to the Order, not attempt a rescue single-handed.  I'm looking at you, Potter."

Harry raised his hands in the air in the universal sign of acquiescence.

"If we run into anyone else, we are to Stun them and use Polyjuice."  Draco dug into his cloak pockets and passed out phials of the disgusting liquid; he'd nicked the unfinished Potion from Snape's stores.  "Clear?"

All three nodded, and Draco pressed his front door open less than an inch to peer through.  Hermione tugged at his sleeve and he turned; she withdrew her wand and cast a careful _Muffliato_ on the edges of the Cloak so that it would not scrape across the floor; then she did the same to her and Harry's robes.  Ron and Draco had known what they would be doing that night and dressed accordingly.

Draco nodded in approval.  No matter what, it was good to have a quick thinker like Hermione Granger on his side.

The Manor entryway was pitch-black, every one of its lamps doused for the night, save a tiny, helpful waylight here and there.  Draco cautiously joined the door to the jamb and waited for any signs of approach.  After two minutes, when no one withdrew to see why the door had opened of its own accord, he moved forward to the main stairwell.

Here, there was no keeping the four together in a small enough knot; whomever rested on the bottom stair showed, knee to foot.  After a moment, Draco ducked out from under the cloak and tossed it over the Trio to cover them more thoroughly.  His presence in his own home was at least explicable; Harry Potter's presence was not.

Draco continued to climb the stairs carefully, avoiding spots that squeaked and moaned through long experience, and smiling to himself at the silence behind him.  The three must have been watching his steps with great attention.

At the head of the staircase, a hallway ran north-south.  The Blue Room was to Draco's immediate left.  He shuddered and slipped past, the trio hopefully in his wake; he could neither hear nor see them.

Together, they made their way down the hallway studded with portraits of snoozing Malfoys and not a few Blacks – and one Weasley, though Draco would never admit that on pain of death.  The old sconces held one, flickering magical candle by every bedroom, presumably if the occupant wished to make use of the facilities in the night.  This left pools of light, islands in the darkness.  Draco breathed a sigh of relief once his feet were on the thick Persian runner that ran down the passage.  He moved to the Azure Room at the end of the hallway and performed several silent unlocking charms on its elaborate brass knob.

Draco had a feeling he would find his aunt in this room: it was so far from his own rooms as to be in another manor altogether, and also quite far from the main household.  He thought it would suit her madness well.

Draco turned the knob and peeked within.  A figure lay in the darkness, breathing evenly, dark hair spilled across the pillow.

Hermione whispered her _Stupefy_ , and Draco cast _Incarcerus_ on its heels.  Harry slipped free of the Cloak and ran into the room, only to come to a skidding halt.

Draco entered the bedroom and shut, locked, and warded the door behind them.  He threw the Cloak across a chair – which immediately disappeared – and gulped a breath of fresh air.  "Well?  What is it?"

Harry leaned over and snatched a wand free of the bedclothes – perhaps Bellatrix had been clutching it – and held it aloft.

Draco stumbled back.  _It was Snape's wand_.  He ran to Potter's side to find Severus Snape, immobilized and unconscious, and felt the conflicting urges to shout and burst into hysterical laughter.

Ron cursed creatively under his breath, which Draco thought summed up the situation nicely.

"Hurry," Hermione hissed.  "He was asleep.  Maybe we can slip out before he realizes..."

But Harry was staring fixedly at the man in front of him, his expression blank.  Draco could see, as though through a Pensieve, Harry running at Snape, yelling at Snape… casting _Crucio_.

Draco wrapped his hand around Harry's, the one holding Snape's ebony wand, and shook his head.

Harry didn't seem to see or feel him.  His gaze was still fixed on Severus, and his breathing had gone tight and rapid.

Draco felt himself begin to panic.  The number of ways this could fall to pieces seemed to grow exponentially in his mind: Death Eaters rushing in at the noise a _Crucio_ 'd Snape would make.  Hermione and Ron falling in the ensuing scuffle.

Draco: never able to return home.  Stuck here, in all probability as Voldemort's lackey, until the day he died…

Harry was lifting his wand, raising it slowly until it pointed at Snape's chest.  His eyes looked faraway and half-mad, but it still seemed as though he were looking _through_ Snape rather than at him, as though he were seeing some distant scene rather than the man who lay before him.

Granger jerked her arm up and cast _Stupefy_.

Harry slumped to the floor.

Draco breathed a half-sob of relief.  He looked behind his shoulder at Hermione, who offered up a grim nod.

But now what?  With Potter passed out, they were significantly hampered in their movements.  Even a Mobilicorpus couldn't _hide_ Harry, or it couldn't hide Harry at the same time it concealed Weasley and Granger.  Rousing Harry would, no doubt, have him at Snape's throat again: they couldn't risk it.

Granger gestured over to the closet and, well, why not?  Leaving Harry concealed someplace was the only option left, and while Draco didn't relish the idea of leaving Harry with Snape, he relished the idea of floating an unconscious Harry behind him down the hallways of Malfoy Manor like an overgrown balloon even less.

Together, the three manhandled Harry into the large closet; Draco moved to the dresser and withdrew a key, locking him inside, then pocketed the key and reclaimed the Cloak.

Silently, the three exited the room.  Hermione cast _Finite Incantatem_ at the closed door.

Draco and Ron turned to stare.

"Well?" she whispered.  "We couldn't have left him like that; what if he woke up and wanted a drink of water, he'd know something's amiss and his shouts'd raise the alarm."

Draco had to reluctantly agree, but didn't have to like it.  He certainly hadn't planned on mistaking Severus Snape for Bellatrix Lestrange when he set up his labyrinth of plans and contingency plans.  In the spirit of verisimilitude, he re-cast the wards and locking spells on the door before withdrawing.

Together, the trio moved forward along the hallways.  The Gold Room was empty.

That left Silver, and Draco felt torn between the fear of encountering his murderous aunt again, and the desperate desire to gain the first Horcrux and return home.  His heart raced so rapidly he felt its beats must be audible, and each breath shuddered through him.  He felt as though he'd been drenched in a bucket of ice.

With consternation, he realized he was fending off an incipient panic attack.

It made sense, he told himself, careful to be rational.  He'd been tortured to the point of insanity; of course he didn't want to face the woman who'd done him so much harm.

Ron cupped his elbow and Draco turned to face him.  The other boy didn't say anything, but his determined expression spoke for him.  Hermione's eyes darted from Ron to Draco and back again.

Draco gulped and nodded.  Hermione slid to the front to stand beside him, and together, they pushed open the door.

In a bed surrounded by white and grey and silver lay Bellatrix Lestrange.  This side of the Manor faced the nearly-full moon, and the witch lay, face up, chin tilted so that the entirety of her face was lit with a pearly effulgence: there was no mistaking her.

Hermione cast _Stupefy,_ and Draco cast _Incarcerus_ , hand shaking but somehow managing to get the job done.  Ron dashed in ahead of them, but Bellatrix did not sleep with her wand as Snape did.  Some quick searching yielded the prize, though; the wand was in the top drawer of the pale Hepplewhite nightstand.

Hermione reached forward to unclasp the locket from Bellatrix's neck.  As Draco had feared and suspected, a present from the Dark Lord was something the woman would wear even as it choked her in her sleep.

Hermione eased the chain away from the pillow cautiously.  Though Bellatrix was theoretically Stunned and wandless, no one said a word or moved with anything less than the utmost care.  And Draco understood.  He more than anyone wanted his aunt to remain asleep.

Hermione turned the locket over in her hand several times.  Weasley gestured frantically, but Granger shook her head.  After a moment's consideration, she waved her wand over the locket and a duplicate appeared in her wand hand.  Hermione handed the locket off to Ron and fastened the duplicate around Bellatrix's neck.

Draco blinked.  He hadn't thought of that, but it made perfect sense.  Ideally, no one would ever know the Locket was missing.

Draco lifted the corner of the Invisibility Cloak and Hermione and Ron scurried back underneath its folds.  Ron held the locket up for all to see, then tucked it in a secure pouch procured for just this purpose.

They turned to go when Draco had an idea.  He wasn't inclined to follow ideas he had on the spur of the moment, but even now he could sense the locket Horcrux throbbing with Dark power.  Wouldn't Lestrange, familiar with the trinket's magical signature, be suspicious of a locket that felt like any other hunk of metal?

Draco returned to his aunt's bedside and cast the worst curse he could think of on the false locket – a curse that could only be cast by one blood relative on another who had betrayed him.  The energy that caused the locket to generate was surprisingly close to Voldemort's malevolent presence.

The trio backed out of the room.  Hermione cast _Finite_ on the door, Draco re-set the locking charms, and they moved away from the Silver Room.

As the three moved back to Snape's rooms, Draco could scarcely believe his good fortune... Draco hadn't thought the locket would be so easily obtained.  He'd have thought Bellatrix would have had some sort of wards around the thing, but if there had been the entire household would've been roused by now.  It was as though someone else's hand tumbled the series of wards to unlock, as though someone else's hand reached out for the knob.

But when the door swung open, immediacy returned in a painful rush.  Draco felt as though he were standing before a roaring fire, frostbitten limbs coming painfully alive.

Snape stood in the middle of the room, wand in hand.  He held it under Harry's throat – Harry, who eyed them all equally murderously, as though he weren't certain with whom he were the most irate.

Snape jerked his head forward.  "Inside, and close the door," he ordered.

Draco obeyed, and jerked the Invisibility Cloak free for good measure.

Snape cursed every bit as creatively as Ron.  "The gang's all here," he sneered.

"Relax," Draco said, tilting his chin towards Weasley and Granger, but keeping his gaze fixed on the man before him.  "He's not going to hurt Potter."

"'Potter' again, is it?" Snape inquired.  "I told you that severing your connections to the Potter brat was all for the best.  I see it gave you the distance you require.  I see it allowed you to bring me Potter after all – trussed up like a turkey, bundled up in my closet of all places.  And now the youngest Weasley brat and Granger, too… and it isn't even my birthday."

Draco shook his head, firmly.  "They're not for you.  We're here fetching the Horcrux, the locket.  Potter got a little… distracted, that's all."

Hermione gasped and Potter's gaze turned so lethal that Draco was pretty certain that if he'd been free he would have cursed Draco, if not ripped him apart with tooth and nail.

"Er, mate, he doesn't know about the Horcruxes…" Weasley whispered.

"He does."  Draco lowered his wand and pocketed it.  "He likely knows where several of them are.  He might be able to tell us."

Granger and Weasley might not fully understand what he was aiming for, but Granger, at least, remembered her promise to follow his lead.  When Weasley opened his mouth, he saw her foot lift and land on his.

Draco didn't say another word; instead, he waited, staring at Snape.  It was perhaps the bravest, stupidest, and therefore most Gryffindor thing he had ever done, including sweeping down from his broom and casting the Killing Curse on Voldemort.

"He won't have died in vain," Snape growled.  He swung his wand to point at the trio, eyes wild.  "I – I'll Obliviate you all…"

"You won't do that, either," Draco replied, firmly.

Snape's eyelid twitched.  "What in Merlin's name makes you think so?" he demanded, advancing, fairly dragging Potter behind him.  "I tore Potter out of your mind, I – I – I _killed_ Albus, an _Obliviate_ is hardly beyond me!"

"You won't because everyone has a limit," Draco said, voice trembling, "and you've reached yours.  I watched you reach it at Spinner's End.  You've had enough of no one trusting you, enough of always doing the right thing and only being punished for it."

Snape issued a ragged gasp, but his wand hand didn't waver.

"But maybe you don't have to play that part anymore," Draco went on, with all the persuasiveness he could muster: eyes wide and intent, palms face-up, open, as welcoming as he could manage.

"No," Snape said, eyes wide.  "I understand my role, I know what I must do –"

"Why must you?" Draco interrupted.  "You can do more good out there than stuck here, it's plain as the nose on your face.  It's as though you're following some prescripted plan, and refusing to alter it no matter the circumstances.  It's illogical, it's not like you, it's…"  Draco's features cleared.  "It was the Headmaster's plan, wasn't it?"

The look on Snape's face said it all.  Draco wished, for a wild and hopeless moment, for Lupin, who would know just what to say to make Snape see just how foolish he was being.

"We need a spy now more than ever, I can continue to pass information along without letting on who I am, the war will fail without me."

"We need you more," Hermione blurted.

Draco and Snape turned as one to face her, and the intimidation of their combined glares must've been monumental, because she turned bright pink almost immediately.

"We… need you more," she repeated, voice clearer, more certain.  "You have invaluable knowledge and skills… and there are others who could help give us information about where Voldemort is and what he's planning.  Aren't there?"  She turned to Draco.

"My mother, for one," Draco agreed.

Snape blanched.  "You would send your mother into that pit of vipers?"

"My mother is standing waist-deep in that pit of vipers, like it or not," Draco replied.  "I daresay she will be relieved if she's told she can be of help in some way.  And Granger's right.  We could use your expertise in locating and destroying these Horcrux things."

" _These Horcrux things_ ," Snape repeated in an incredulous, horror-struck voice.

"We're doomed, I know," Draco cheerfully replied.

"Things'd move faster if you'd help us," Hermione tacked on.  "We'd be – less doomed.  Marginally."

"I'm still leaning towards Obliviation," Snape informed her, still sounding rather gobsmacked.

"Why'd you kill Dumbledore?" Ron butted in, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Oh, it's obvious, Ronald," Hermione said with a roll of her eyes.  "If he's staying on as a spy as part of Dumbledore's plan, it must be to keep his cover.  Killing the Headmaster would cement Snape's place at Voldemort's right side."

"Dumbledore isn't alive somewhere, pulling the strings?" Ron hopefully inquired.

Draco sighed when Snape's features blanched and he swayed on his feet.

Harry took the opportunity to wriggle free; apparently, the Stunner had worn off.

Snape slumped to seat himself on the edge of his bed and nearly missed.

"He _told you to_ ," Hermione realized.  "He _ordered you_.  I – I could box his ears!" she passionately exclaimed.

Snape's head jerked up and the edge of his lips twitched and for one, brief moment, Draco could see a glimmer of the man he knew attempting to press out from the shell of the creature before him.

"He – he was weak when he came back to the Astronomy Tower, he – he couldn't defend himself," Harry blurted, trembling as the words left him, as though he were releasing an _Obscura_.  "You killed him when he –"

Snape's hunched shoulders began to shake as he perched on the edge of the bed.  Draco thought with horror that the man looked on the verge of tears.

Harry stumbled to a verbal halt as though he'd been Stunned all over again.  The dark-haired boy blinked rapidly and looked away with a politeness Draco didn't know he possessed.

"You rescued me," Draco said, pressing a hand to Snape's shoulder.  "You've rescued me a number of times, and I've only saved your life once, you know.  It's my turn."

Snape looked up at him, solemn-eyed.  "Faulty logic, Mister Malfoy."

"It's nothing to do with logic," Draco said.  "It's foolish Gryffindor sentimentality.  Just like your own."  He licked his lips, gaze darting back at the closed door.  "I know he told you to be a spy, professor.  It might've even been the last thing he asked you to do.  But what's more important?  Indulging a dying man's last wish, or ending this war the fastest way you know how?"

"Please, Professor," Hermione said, and was silent.

Draco didn't dare turn to face Ron, but he could practically feel the other boy's horror at the very thought of Horcrux-hunting with Snape.

"I would be a hindrance," Snape finally said, darting a glance at Potter.

"Oh, don't stop on my account," Potter said, features dark.  "Malfoy's decided you're innocent, and his opinion is character reference enough for me.  Or at least, it is for Hermione.  And for Ron."

Draco noticed he wasn't attempting to hex Snape anymore, however, and he looked dubious rather than murderous.

"I tried to tell you this back at Spinner's End," Snape croaked, voice intense, staring at Draco with an unfamiliar helplessness in his eyes.  "I _killed him_ , I cannot be forgiven, I – I don't _wish it_ –"

Harry stepped forward suddenly, posture tense, and Snape's speech cut off.  Draco could not see Harry's face, but he could see Snape's.  The older wizard's features were a strange combination of hardness and despair, but the hardness kept falling away, he could not maintain it.

"You killed him to maintain your cover.  If you're forgiven, he died in vain," Harry said, evenly.

Snape said nothing, but the hardness had drained away entirely, now.  He looked up at Harry, features empty.

"But he didn't," Harry went on.  "Die in vain, I mean.  He wanted to make sure Malfoy didn't become a killer, too, and you managed that well enough, between you.  That's – he would have thought that was just as important."  He took a shaky breath.  "More important."

Snape blinked, expression returning to his features.  He sketched a jerky sort of nod.

"I hate to interrupt," Ron interrupted anxiously, "but we're running out of time.  We've got to leave before the household starts to wake up.  With or without your help.  Sir," he tacked on belatedly.

Snape stood, and the mantle of authority seemed to settle over his shoulders again: his spine straightened, and he shifted his hair out of his eyes.  "Well, then," he said.

Draco held his breath.

"I suppose someone will have to keep an eye on you."

Hermione gasped, and Ron paled, and Draco tried to tamp down his smug joy, but was relatively certain he was fooling no one.

Potter was looking up at Snape as though he'd never seen him before.

"Well, Potter?" Snape snapped.  "Stop catching flies, if you can help it.  The household will be awake in a matter of moments.  I have three foolish Gryffindor children – _four_ ," he amended, with a glare at Draco, "to smuggle out of Malfoy Manor, and precious little time in which to do it."

 

* * *

 

A/N: Isn't it funny when you have no idea what's going to happen, what someone will say or do in one of your _own_ stories? For instance, in this chapter I was initially certain that it was the other *Ron* who was going to join the party, and instead... it's Snape. Canon!Snape.

This sprung from a discussion between myself and my mother - who has always been my first beta - discussing how the snatching of the locket would go wrong. I said it shouldn't be the fetching of the locket itself that would be so disastrous. Rather, they should run into Snape, and Harry would go all rogue and angsty, and run at him, despite Draco trying to warn him off. This would be a good demonstration of how Harry still doesn't trust Draco, and doesn't really listen to him. We got started talking about it, and somehow our discussion ended with Harry stuffed into Snape's closet, Stunned and _Incarcerus_ 'd, and Snape asking pointed but hilarious questions as to how he ended up there: _I see you have left me a present, though Merlin knows it's not the sort I'd wish for, Malfoy; it is possible to RETURN this gift?_ Picturing Snape's incredulity at stumbling across a Potter in his bedroom closet of all places was enough to set us off again.

Even during that conversation, I was pretty sure that Draco would be begging for Harry's life. Snape would be saying that he'd have to at least injure Harry in order to maintain his cover, all while talking around the Trio so that they didn't really KNOW that's what he was implying.

Somehow, that conversation never happened, and this one happened instead.

I find this turnaround happens in almost every scene where I write Snape. I think I know just what he's going to do, and I'm always wrong. He goes and taunts Lupin into decking him, he tells Harry he was only as in love with Lily as he was with James (re-read that scene if you didn't catch that, the first time around), he talks his way around Umbridge with aplomb, he reconstitutes Harry's burned papers and lets him into Advanced Potions.

I really need a review on this one, folks. I worry it doesn't work, because like Draco, This Wasn't How I Planned It. Let me know. :)

Sorry for the chapter delay as well; honestly, I was at Mayo Clinic for a week and a half, and was too exhausted to even hit 'post'. 

 

-K


	9. Shades

The first thing that Severus Snape did on arriving at the Black house was to banish the spectre of Dumbledore with something approaching contempt.  Of all the childish nonsense!  Expecting Severus to quail at a mere shade when he'd gone and murdered the real thing.

Then, Draco Malfoy (or some approximation thereof) showed him to a quiet room, whereupon he attempted to protest that he _did not sleep_.  However, said approximation shoved him through the door and dimmed the lights and played some sort of white-noise sound like waves crashing against rock.  Severus didn't even have time to unlace his boots before he was dead to the world.

He woke several times with a painful start, heart hammering.  The first time it took him a good ten minutes before he was able to calm himself enough to sleep.  Each jolt thereafter took less time to overcome than the one before it until he was deep in slumber.

 _Merlin_ , he thought sluggishly, the images of the past several weeks flickering behind his closed lids, _Merlin's hairy balls._   And the foul language seemed to help, so he went on with it: _fucking Dumbledore,_ he thought, properly angry for the first time since… _Merlin, FUCK_ , he went on, because it felt good to be angry, it felt good to be _anything_.  And with that he was truly awake.

Severus sat up and looked down at his bare toes.  He wriggled them experimentally.

At some point during the night, someone had helpfully removed his shoes. They were lined up neatly at the side of the bed, muddy and dark and serviceable: his.

Severus tried to picture any of the children downstairs doing so, flipped through the images like mental Polaroids – Draco, Granger, Weasley, _Potter_ – and could not make sense of any of them.  Then, he'd no idea why he was here, why he'd allowed himself to be convinced.

 _Maybe you weren't,_ a sly little voice said, a voice that sounded very familiar.  _Maybe you were sick to get out of there._

"Of course I was," Severus said aloud, and it was true.  Only those well shot of their marbles, like Bellatrix Lestrange, really _wanted_ to be in the Dark Lord's presence.  The others viewed him as a gauntlet they had to run on the way to the wealth and power they saw as their due.  There was only one other reason to serve the Dark Lord, and that was a guilty conscience.

Merlin knew Severus had that in spades.  He could see Lily standing before him, looking politely incredulous in that way she had, one brow raised, lips pressed together in an unwittingly charming little moue.  _Is't_ hard _, Severus_? she'd inquire, leaning forward engagingly.  _Is it difficult for you?  Didn't think about how difficult it was for me, though, did you, being the mother of the Boy Who Lived…  Luckily I wasn't at it for long…_

Severus shook his head, dismissing the image, but it was a persistent one.  A lock of Lily Evans-Potter's vibrant red hair slid into his vision even as he turned the other way; she was still leaning forward, only now she had ducked around the recalcitrant tilt of his head to slip into his vision.  _Still so_ tormented _,_ she intoned lowly.  _Still so focussed on his_ issues. _That's Severus Snape in a nutshell._

He stood and whirled to the old dresser-drawers in the scarce hope of discovering clean clothing, blinking rapidly, but it was as though she were burned on his retinas: she slipped before him in all her twenty-year-old glory, hair unbound, eyes bright as foxfire, bright as scorn.  Her lips parted to speak, and then her eyes traveled down to his bare feet, and she seemed to forget what she was going to say.

This was so startling that Severus himself stood as though he'd been struck.

She smiled, suddenly, and then began to laugh, wrapping both arms around her guts as though she still had guts to hold in.  _Oh!_ she exclaimed in between gales of laughter, _oh, you've brought yourself to ruin, Severus!  It was over the moment you walked through the door!_ Then, she disappeared to his eye.

Severus sighed when his investigations yielded cloaks and trousers to fit the young men in the house, and one motheaten suit that would have been out of fashion in his grandfather's day.  He cast a freshening charm instead, then leaned his head against the closed bedroom door, eyes tightly shut.  He took several measured breaths, pulled the mantle of Professor over his shoulders and exited the room.

Twelve Grimmauld was so ancient and so thick with magic – black, white, wardish – that all noise was muffled, but it took Severus little time to discern that there were young voices piping from the dining room.  Severus descended until he stood in the foyer and paused a moment, listening: if the children were too foolish to cast wards, then it was on their own heads if they drew an eavesdropper.

"…need a more streamlined approach," one of the children said in an intense voice with a trace of the West Country.  "Hunting these things down one by one just isn't feasible, H – er, Potter."

Severus blinked when he realized the informal speaker was _Draco Malfoy_ , losing his cultured accent in his frustration.

 _Which is_ hysterical _,_ Lily whispered in his ear.  _Who knew he so much as spoke to the Muggle filth in Wiltshire?_

Severus waved her away like a troublesome bee.

"…see that we have a choice," said a fussy voice, and of course that was Granger, with her clipped syllables and careful wording.  "We've got to get all of the Horcruxes in one place, Malfoy, and I don't hear you offering any other suggestions!"

"Because I don't have any on hand!  I'm suggesting we begin to research, something that should light you aflame with joy!  There's got to be a way to find these things more _easily_ than mucking about in _hopes_ of –"

"It isn't _mucking about_ ," came Potter's voice: quiet, cold, it sliced through the voices of the other children like the words of a much older, more venerated wizard.  "Don't you think that if there was a faster way that Dumbledore would've found it?"

The name _Dumbledore_ seemed to hang in the air for a good half-minute; Severus wondered if Potter were aware he was using it like a talisman to ward off Draco's argument… if the others were aware.

"…and if Professor Snape wakes up, he might have an idea about a spell that could help us locate them as well…"

Lily's voice in his ear scoffed.  _Countering Dumbledore's influence with yours?_

"Fighting a losing battle, boy," Severus whispered to himself, and sure enough, Granger's voice interjected.

"We can't wait on Professor Snape any longer," she said in a surprisingly sympathetic voice.  "He's been asleep for three days.  There's no telling when he'll wake up."

Lily's shocked gaze met his own.  _Three days?_

"It's a healing sleep.  And as I've _already explained_ , he should awaken soon.  Several of the more pureblooded families –"

" – So it's not something _I'd_ understand," Granger cut in.

"That's not what I said."

"It's what you meant," she returned.

"Fine," Draco huffed, and Severus could almost see him crossing his arms over his chest.  "I'm a pureblooded bigot who can't see past the end of his Malfoy nose.  That's not the question at hand, here.  The question is whether we should go to _Godric's Bloody Hollow_ in the _faint hope_ that something interesting leads us to something _else_ interesting, or we can work on engineering a spell that can _lead_ us to the Horcruxes directly… or at least try for Iridian Manor… _Ron_?"

And Severus had to blink in surprise, because the last could not be mistaken for anything but supplication.

 _A Malfoy begging a Weasley,_ Lily whispered.  _There are undercurrents here you don't understand._

There was a long pause in which no one spoke.

"…I don't know what you want me to say," said the youngest Weasley brother.

"Well that's clear enough," Draco spat.

"Don't take your frustration out on him," Granger sighed.  "Look, I'm sorry, I shouldn't've – with the Muggleborn crack.  I know you don't – but it's hard, all right?  Maybe we should just continue this discussion another day."

"I'm not waiting another day," Potter predictably declared, probably with a dramatic flourish of some sort.  "I'm not waiting for Snape to wake up or for you to invent some kind of Dark-Arts detecting spell.  I'm leaving for Godric's Hollow, and you can come or not."

"Oh, no!" Draco shouted.  "You don't get to make ultimatums, Potter!"

"I get to _say_ whatever I bloody well –"

"No!" Draco returned, and the Wiltshire was in full force, lo and behold!  Severus gaped.  He didn't think he'd ever heard the blond boy sound so impassioned.  "You do _not_ get to guilt us – them – bloody hell, _us_! – into following you and damn the consequences.  I am not a Gryffindor, I'll bloody well look before I leap, and _you'll_ bloody well let me and SIT DOWN POTTER BEFORE I NAIL YOU DOWN."

Severus figured now was about the proper time to interject, so he strode forward into the dining room.  "Good morning, class," he said, with the appropriate irony.

He had the satisfaction of watching all the colour drain from the faces of the three Gryffindors – except, perhaps, Weasley, who looked white as milk to begin with – and of watching Draco's cheeks flush with the color of fury.  "You tell him, Professor, that he always rushes off without a thought for the rest of us!  Who jumps down into a dark hole he needed a flying _hat_ to get out of the last time!  I ask you!"  And he sat down with a huff.

"You're… well," said Granger blankly.

Ronald Weasley stood, and moved towards a door that Severus recalled headed down to the kitchens.  "Cannot stand my company for the space of an entire minute, Mister Weasley?" he hissed.

Weasley paused with the tips of his fingers against the door, and didn't say anything for a moment.  "Thought we might have some tea," he replied without turning, and disappeared.

 _Something strange there and no mistake,_ said Lily.

Severus began to worry about the extra voice in his head at precisely that moment.

 _Though if anyone has leave to go mad it's you,_ she went on with a tinkling little laugh.  _Isn't that what you were thinking?_

"There's no two ways about it, you were listening and no mistake," Draco said.  "So?  Well, _is_ there such a spell?"

Snape smiled.  "I've never heard you speak that way, Mister Malfoy.  Did the guttersnipes in Wiltshire teach you?  I suppose you weren't so well-insulated from Muggles as your parents imagined."

This had the doubly-satisfying effects of making Granger and Potter look obscurely guilty and causing Draco to pale and stammer.

"I – I – It's none of your b – b – bloody business how I…"  Draco turned a brighter red and clammed up, suddenly.

Severus swallowed, and Lily leaned forward, suddenly visible to his eye.  She turned to stare mutely at Severus.  "…the _Cruciatus_.  My formula wasn't strong enough to repair the damage..."

Draco opened his mouth and closed it again, obviously thinking better of continuing to try to speak, and Granger – and Potter, even – looked sympathetic but at a loss.

Weasley emerged at that moment from the kitchens with a tray and tea things.  He poured Draco a cuppa and set a small potion phial in front of him.  "You forgot your potion last night," he explained.  "And, sir, it's not that M…" Weasley closed his eyes and his jaw firmed.  "The potion wasn't to blame.  It's only that _Draco_ gave it to my brother, Bill, who'd been slashed by Greyback.  Full moon or no, he was never going to be the same.  So Draco has to take this potion to fix his stammer, now.  Probably for good."

Severus turned to stare at the Slytherin, who was knocking back the potion while avoiding Severus's eyes.  Severus barked a laugh, then stared, until Draco finally looked up.  He discerned through Legilimency that Weasley had spoken plainly; that, moreover, Draco hadn't given Bill the potion in order to flip Ron, though he'd seen that as an additional benefit at the time.

"Why - ?"

Draco shrugged.

"And we could use the Trace," Weasley blurted suddenly.

Everyone turned to stare.

"The _Trace_ ," Weasley said, busying his hands with the tea things.  "Used to detect underage wizards doing magic?  Draco and I researched it when he was still in the Wing.  The Trace works by detecting the sort of untrained magic performed by underage witches and wizards: it has a _trace_.  There must be other spells that detect traces of magic.  We've _got_ a Horcrux, so it shouldn't be but so tough to tailor a spell to detect its trace.  Right, sir?  Professor?"

"Ron," Granger breathed, as though she'd never seen him before.

Severus sort of knew how she felt.

"You trust that I will aid you in order to discover this spell?" he queried, staring at the Weasley boy.

Ron Weasley looked him up and down, and Severus felt, strangely, as though he were being Legilimized, although he felt no tell-tale press of another's mind against his own.  "Sure," the redhead finally said, with an anticlimactic shrug.  "Draco trusts you, and, well, he doesn't trust many people, so… and I trust him."

Potter stared, Granger stared, and Draco pinked.

"Thank you, Ron," he said quietly.  The blond looked up to find Potter with his eyes.  "Please don't go without us.  Promise you won't."

Potter's gaze slid across the room, from Ron, who looked mulish, to Hermione, avoiding his eyes, to Snape – no help there – and back to Draco.  He deflated.  "Merlin, Malfoy – fine.  Nowhere without you.  We'll just sit in this old pile of termite-holes 'til we rust."

Severus examined Potter's features while the boy was occupied.  His expression was so complex it was impossible for Severus to read.

Lily smiled.  _Really?_ she inquired, one eyebrow arched.  _Your skills fail here, of all places?_ She knelt down at her son's feet and looked up.  _He's bewildered; no one's ever gone against his wishes like this, at least not in this realm.  But,_ she added with a smile, _he's glad someone finally did.  He was afraid he was going to have to do this all on his own._

As Severus watched, the corner of Potter's mouth twitched.  The boy followed this with a puzzled frown, as though even he wasn't certain why he felt so relieved.

Severus took a sip of his tea, and nodded warily at Ron, who nodded in return.

It was really quite good.

"There are whole classes of detection spells," Granger said, eager to share her knowledge as ever, now that the tension in the room seemed to have eased.  "It may not be possible to equate Horcruxes and the magic performed by underage witches and wizards –"

Ron's head jerked up in response, and his eyes flared.  "Oh.  No, no, I looked it up.  It's, it's –"  He broke off to snap his fingers.

"…Magnetic," Draco filled in, without looking up from his tea.

Ron pointed at Draco.  "Yeah, right, that's it.  So it's, y'know, _attractive_.  Perfect, see?"

Hermione nodded.  "Well, that's lucky.  Polars are dead tricky, but Magnetics are all right."  She smiled, patiently.

If she thought Ron would stop there, however, she was immediately disabused.  "Thing is, we need more than just a Magnetic trace," he said, rubbing his chin.  "I mean, that was fine for the potion Harry took, we just needed to… mess with the – thingie."  He waved his hand.

"Destabilize the attractive force," Draco translated.

"Right, right, disrupt the – yeah," Ron went on, hand still rotating at the wrist.

"Destabilize the – what?" Potter interjected, rotating his wrist in turn and wearing a puzzled frown.

Ron conjured a bit of parchment.  "See here," he began, then flushed and ground to a halt.  "Er… professor, you'll tell me if I've gone wrong…"

"Rest assured," Severus said with a predatory smile.  "Do continue."

Ron gulped, but then turned his attention back to the parchment again, undeterred, while Draco looked on like a cat who'd got the cream.  "See, there are traces – signatures – when underage magic is performed.  And the Trace spell sort of _attracts_ those traces.  And so the Ministry can follow that Trace _back_ to…"

"…its origins," Draco finished.

 _Looks rather smug, that one,_ Lily observed, standing behind Draco Malfoy's chair.

"So if we engineer a Horcrux Trace," Hermione Granger filled in, "then it should take us back to the object on which the Horcrux curse was cast."

"See, no," Ron corrected, instantly and emphatically enough that Granger's features fell.  "It'd take you back to the _person_ who cast the spell… the spell's _origin._ "

The entire table fell silent.

"The Trace tracks the the witch or wizard's spell back to their magical core," Ron went on, bringing his hands to his chest and throwing his arms wide.  "Following a Trace means finding the person who cast the sort of magic you're looking for."

"Then how will that help us find the Horcruxes?" Potter inquired – without, Severus noted, his usual impatience.  He wore the same expression as Draco, though Potter's also held the hint of incredulous surprise.

"Yes, then how will that help us with the Horcruxes?" Granger echoed, rapt.

Ron shrugged, and eyed Draco; but the blond only gestured forward: _the floor is yours._

"Er… we'd have to invent a new spell.  Like the old one, but only sort of."

Potter threw up his hands and a _whoof_ of exasperated air escaped Granger.  "Ronald," she said, "that's not as easy as you're making it sound!"

"You did _Point Me_ ," the boy pointed out, "when you were loads younger than we are now.  That's a location spell.  You could use it to find people, things… dead useful."

" _Point Me_ is a child's spell," Granger protested, even as her lips twitched at the implicit compliment.  "It can't find just anything.  It is repelled by most of the wards wizards place around things they want to stay hidden."

"Regardless, Granger," Draco interjected lazily, "Ron's point is a good one.  If you did _Point Me_ at… what… age twelve?... then perhaps the whole of us working together could manage something a touch more complex.  Plus, we have a professor working with us.  Don't we, Professor Snape?"

Severus blinked.

 _Oh, cleverer and cleverer,_ Lily said, one hand pressed to Draco Malfoy's shoulder; he did not seem to notice.  _Perhaps there's a reason he's so smug, eh, Severus_?

"The creation of a new spell is a weighty endeavor," Severus drawled, neatly side-stepping the question, "but not an impossible one.  That is, provided the… inventors… are motivated."  He raised an incredulous eyebrow, then wasn't sure at whom he should be directing it.  Granger was swottish to the point of foolishness, Draco was bright and capable, and Weasley was being uncharacteristically constructive. He settled, eventually, on Potter, who could be blamed for most things.

He found that Potter was already staring right back, eyes dark.

Severus's gaze jerked away and landed back on Ron.

"Look," Granger was telling him, "what you're discussing is a hybrid spell between _Point Me_ and a Magnetic Trace –"

"No, not a hybrid –" Malfoy interrupted.

"What's a hybrid?"

Granger, in full lecture mode: "…like a spell, one laid atop another…"

"But that's not right," Weasley said.  "We don't want a _hybrid_ , a hybrid combines spells 'til what you get is somewhere in between –"

Potter jolted upright.  "First one and then the other!" he exclaimed.  He scrabbled for Weasley's piece of parchment and began writing.  It was the most vehement Severus had ever seen Potter, discussions of his godfather aside.  While Ron had slowly warmed to his subject, Potter was a combustion reaction and, once lit, flared brightly.

The children were all alight with it, now, leaning forward to examine Potter's parchment, each one's energy feeding off the others'.  "No, no," Granger said, "because of the –" and Draco snatched the kohl from Potter's hand and scribbled.  "But, see, if we –"  And Ron laughed aloud.

Lily hovered behind them, frowning and making such contortions of her features that Severus had to rise and stand behind them and watch what was taking shape.

The spell had the Arithmancial symbology of a Trace, but the rune for travel – R – was inverted, in Granger's precise script.

"No," Severus snapped, ready to rip the useless Arithmancy in half; but then he noticed a particularly innovative use of Walrim's Theorum in Draco's unmistakable lacy handwriting, and he had to slowly seat himself instead, the children clustered 'round him.

" _No_ ," Draco quoted, "what's no?"

"You cannot inverse the quantity like that, the solution for energy becomes undefined," Severus murmured, but he was still staring at the strange location of Walrim's Constant in the equations, and his finger lingered there.

"Look," Draco said, conjuring more parchment.  He used a Sticking Charm and pressed three sheets to the dining room wall.  He scribbled down three formulas: the more complex and lesser-used Arithmancical formula for Apparition on the first sheet, the formula for the Trace on underage magic on the second, and the formula for Portkey creation on the third: energy expended is change in distance times mass over time and time again.

Granger stared at the three formulas.  "If this part of the Apparition formula is converted to 'distance traveled', and this whole bit to 'Second Energy' in the Portkey, they're identical."

"They're based off of the same principles," Draco replied.  "But look: _combine_ them and cancel out here and here, and…"

"It's Walrim's Constant, only written using different symbols," Hermione said.  She was staring at Draco Malfoy as though he had just gifted her with a grand library, or ensured that House Elves should never be enslaved again.

Then Hermione blinked, shifted her bushy hair out of the way, and leaned over Severus's shoulder.  "And that's… the Arithmancical Model for Apparition along a Trace," Granger breathed.

"A spell could be crafted to Trace any magical object," Draco agreed, "and, potentially, Trace where magical portals lead, in the case of Portkeys, Mirrors, and… other such things."

"Potentially," Potter interjected, missing the reference to Draco's travels entirely.  "I mean, you'd have to tailor the spell to each magical object in turn, right?  It's not as though _this_ spell would detect the path of a Portkey."

"No," Draco sighed.  "It's not a catch-all.  Our spell would solely be a Horcrux detector."  A smile grew on his face until he was shining with it.  "I'd started to think you lot were dimmer than mine, honestly."

"Shut it, Malfoy," Potter ordered, but there was no bite to the boy's words.  He was staring at the formulae and trembling, just barely on the edge of Severus's perception – terrified or like a hound dog on point, though, that was the question.

Once again, the Potter boy's eyes found his, and Severus found himself dropping his gaze with an instinctiveness that threatened to needle him past reason.  First, that near-Legilimisation from Ronald Weasley of all people, and now this from Potter.  Next he'd be wondering if Granger were going to take points!

 _But that's simple, Severus_ , Lily interjected, perching on the table before him and swinging long, white legs back and forth.  _You're at their mercy.  Without my son's tolerance, where should you go?_   She eyed him coyly. _You could disappear, true.  But alone, cut off from the war you've sacrificed so much to win – it would end you.  It's no wonder you keep looking to the three of them to test the waters.  Hoping they're better masters of you than you were of them…_

Severus stared up at her, knowing she was right.  He'd placed his entire future at Harry-Bloody-Potter's feet the moment he'd left the Manor – he'd have to've been half-mad to do such a thing.

No wonder the other half of his mind seemed to be galloping after, he thought, staring sourly at Lily's shade.

"…cast the coordinates according to this formula to discover the wand-movement," Hermione Granger was saying, sounding breathlessly excited at the prospect, "and see if the result makes sense."

 _Keen, isn't she?_ Lily enquired, leaning back on her hands to peer half over her shoulder at Granger.  _Good, too – better than you, Severus._

Keen was the word, and also brilliant and blindly compassionate, sometimes to her detriment, Severus thought, staring at the bushy-haired girl as she went on with her work, the boys clustered 'round her as she played with the variables.  When she had a captive audience for her ideas she was vibrant, pointing out this or that aspect of her work with excitement and anticipation.  There was nothing of the girl who needed his attention so desperately that her hand shot up for every question, waving through the air on that first day of school.

He had to stop thinking of her as a _girl_ , he had to stop thinking of them all as children and in fact, he realized he'd already begun.

 _They're your allies, now,_ Lily whispered.  _And it's really no different from before.  Remus Lupin_ , she said, standing behind Hermione Granger.  Severus snorted and turned his head, but Lily had already moved to stand behind Ronald Weasley, placing one slim hand on his shoulder.  _James Potter,_ she said, causing Severus to blink in surprise.  _Needs approval from the others, perhaps too much, but he's got a good heart, would save your life even if he despised you._   She smiled, taking his silence for agreement, and moved to stand behind her son.

Severus couldn't help a huffed laugh, putting his head in his hands.

 _And this,_ Lily went on, _is Sirius Black._

Severus's head shot up to find that Harry Potter was still staring at him, or perhaps again, with the darkest of gazes.

 _Watch out for this one,_ came Lily's lowest, most serious voice.  _He doesn't know what it's like to have an adult love him, and to him, you represent all that dark patriarchy that has beat at him until he despises the very thought of it.  Of you.  He'd let an unwitting friend murder you and think it a lark._

Severus swallowed, and nodded once to Potter.

Potter jerked and looked away.

She leaned forward, the sweep of her blood-red hair tickling Severus's ear.  _The difference is that he's ashamed of it,_ she whispered as Potter stood suddenly, making eye contact again.  _You can work with that, Sev, but then, you can work with anything, can't you?_

Severus rose and followed Potter down to the kitchens, feeling as though he had been called up to the Headmaster's Office.

The thoughts that swirled in the eddies of that one burned.

* * *

A/N:

I always feel a little weird about exposition and technobabble of whatever sort.  I kept adding more and deleting more until my usual pre-reader said, "for heaven's sake, if it were easy, the Order would've done it by now!  Include it!"  So I'm interested to hear what you guys think.  Was it interesting?  Boring?  Neutral, but plot-necessary? 

Ah, Lily.  I debated whether to put her as a 'character' in the tags, because she's not _exactly_ here... but she also is?  At least in the universe of Severus's brain.

Severus's madness... we didn't see much of him in Book 7, but I imagine he was close to insanity when I picture what he was up to at that time.  He murdered his mentor _at his workplace_ and in full view of the scion of the Light... and that must mean he had nowhere to go but where Voldemort pointed.  He probably spent a lot of time around Voldemort and Bellatrix.  Every day must've been a nightmare.  I can't imagine he stayed entirely sane.

Thanks so much for all your well-wishes!  You guys are awesome as always.  :D

-K


	10. Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have not yet noticed, I skipped a chapter by accident. Please go back and read what is now chapter 6 before continuing.
> 
> /public service message!

"You wouldn't wake up," were Potter's first words to him once the door closed behind them.

Severus wasn't sure what to say to that.  Lily's spectre was gone, and her voice was silent.

"I was so angry with you, and then you wouldn't wake up," Potter repeated.  "Thought you might be dead, thought you might be – I dunno, cursed."

"I am certain that Draco informed you that I was in a healing sleep.  Much as you may despise him, his information on such matters is trustworthy."

Potter stared.  "Can't despise Malfoy, but I don't trust him.  Not anything he says."

" _Can't_ is an interesting choice of words."

"Well, he backed down, didn't he?  Even if it was at the last moment."

Severus sat down – rather quickly, he was afraid.  "You saw."

"Everything," Potter replied.

They remained like that awhile, Severus seated and Harry standing, each staring at the other.  Potter's eye twitched, as though he found the situation just as uncomfortable as Severus did.

"Besides that, he's gone – funny – from it," Potter said, unfolding his arms finally, just so he could gesticulate rather dramatically on the word _funny_.

"He's told you about that, has he?"

"About this other world, where he's on the side of the Light, Dumbledore's alive, and we all get along.  Doesn't take a Mediwitch to see where that's come from," Potter said with a side of pragmatic practicality that Severus hadn't expected, especially given the way Potter's voice faltered on the Headmaster's name.  Potter scratched at his nose, pondering a moment.  "Things started to go different after he got his Mark, according to him."  He stared at Severus another, bare moment.  "Can hardly blame him for wanting to think so…"  He paused, cursed.  "Why am I telling you all of this?"

"Perhaps for the same reason I am here," Severus offered.  "You have no one else."

"I've got Ron and Hermione," Harry returned.

"Can you tell them these things?"

"No."

"Then in this, at least, you have no one."

Potter shrugged.  "Hate it when you're reasonable."

"Hate me when I'm reasonable, unreasonable, and everyplace in between, Potter."

"Hate the sight of you, actually.  I wanted it to come to wands.  Wanted you to shout at me, call me a stupid little freak so I could curse you."

Severus blinked in the face of this honesty.  "I am sorry I could not oblige you, Mister Potter," he said with a trace of his old sarcasm.  "But unfortunately, I have never called you a freak, stupid or otherwise."

Potter turned a vibrant shade of red.  "No, that was… someone else.  You're a lot alike, I'm hardly to blame if I mix it up, who's slung which insult."

Severus's brows raised.  He'd thought he was the only adult in Potter's life who dared call him out on the frequent abuses of his fame, but perhaps he'd been wrong.

"Hermione's right, we need you," Potter blurted suddenly, "and Ron's being mature about it all, and we're working with Draco-bloody-Malfoy, and I can't be the one who's too much of a child to… I have to be the leader," he said firmly, and it was clear Severus wasn't the one he was trying to convince.  "So tell me the truth.  The Headmaster... he told you to do it, didn't he?  He wanted me to hate you, he wanted everyone to think you were a traitor… but you have to tell me through Legilimency, you have to let me _see_."  Potter's eyes were green as Avada, intense as Lily, and Severus could not turn away.

Severus saw a fresh flare of pain go off like a firework behind Potter's eyes, a pain that matched his own, and that decided it.  "Yes.  Yes, you can see," he said hoarsely.  _You can see whatever you want_ , he thought, and the thought horrified and terrified him, because how had he gotten here?  How in Merlin's name had he gone from standing in front of this boy as his Potions Professor to sitting before him in supplication in the house of his enemy?

"I can't – I'm bollocks at Legilimency," Potter said, with a bitter twist to his lip that read, _you would know._   "You'll have to help."

Certainly.  Why not?  It made sense that Potter could not even take what he needed, that Severus would have to offer it up, willingly.  That he was required not only to stomach Potter's trampling through his mind but draw him in, past his own barriers and towards the heart of him.

Potter sat across from him, straddling the wooden bench so that he could better face Severus.

"What if you're wrong?" Severus said with a swallow.  "What if I'm here to sabotage you?  I could take advantage of your mind.  There are ways – I could destroy you."

Something in Harry's features changed then, shifted under his skin.  "Not right now," he said carefully, "or you wouldn't've told me."

Severus accepted this Gryffindor circular logic.  "Empty your mind of all thoughts, then," he began.

"That doesn't work, hold on," Potter said, and suddenly there was a second presence that had joined Severus's.

"How -?"

"I got this far on my own," Potter replied, sounding faraway, eyes half-closed.

Severus felt a faint, unwilling respect tinge his thoughts for a moment, then furiously tried to hide the regard, then cursed himself for trying to hide it.  He was trying to let Potter _in_ , for Merlin's sake!

Potter was consciously trying to find a way in, too – clumsily, but with rather more intent than Severus would have expected of a beginner.  Though it made sense that Potter, with his dash-in, impetuous personality, would be better at attack than defense.

Severus shook himself free of his thoughts.  He had to focus, he had to lower his Occlumency shields.

The way he'd only done for Dumbledore.

Potter reeled.  _What…?_

The first layers were peeled away, Severus realized triumphantly.  That was – good, he told himself, despite the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead and the roiling in his guts.  It'd be fine, he just had to show Potter –

_James Potter laughing in the sun, cruel, head thrown back –_

\- the inside of his mind for a moment.  Just long enough to show him that what had happened to Dumbledore –

 _Behind his desk, quill moving across the parchment that would make Severus Snape a Professor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry –  "Did you have any more questions, Severus?"_ –

\- wasn't truly foul play, and then he could shove him unceremoniously out again.  It was fine, it was fine, it was…

…it was giving him a nervous collapse, and Potter could tell.  The presence in his mind had gone from reciprocally panicky to patronizingly soothing.  Severus snarled at it and it retreated.

Which ran against the bloody point!  For Merlin's sake, he wasn't a child.  He could _do_ this.

" _You're not a child, Severus."  His father's voice, in a rare moment of sober honesty.  "You can take care of yourself a sight better than me an' yer mum ever could…"_

Oh, Merlin.  No, he didn't want Potter to see that memory.  But Potter didn't have to.  Severus just had to lower the Occlumency barriers until Potter could feel Severus's _emotions_ and they could _talk_ like in any other conversation, and Potter would see the images and feel what Severus felt and he'd _know_ how he felt when he killed Dumbledore –

The second set of walls toppled with a mental crash, and Potter was past them.  Somewhere far, far away, someone was gasping in shock.  Severus hoped it wasn't him.

Potter's presence had acquired a sense of – color was the closest Severus could come to describing it.  There was a shining red presence in his mind, and it had lost some of its essential – _Potterness_.  Severus felt himself relax a hair, felt approval shine from the red presence, which drew slightly closer.

The third set of walls fell.

 _How many of these have you got?_ whispered the red presence, registering awe and shock and a tinge of worry.

 _Lots_ , Severus replied, and they drew further in, further into Severus's deepest sense of self.  A red-headed woman Severus thought he ought to know appeared, took the boy's hand – he was a boy again, now – and led him forward.

Severus thought _I should be anxious, I should be terrified_ , but he could no longer recall why.

This was a great relief.

The boy looked up at the redheaded woman and opened his mouth to speak, but then she was gone.  _Tell me about Dumbledore,_ he said.

Severus could no more offer or withhold his memories than he could offer or withhold someone else's – the thoughts that raced here now belonged as much to the boy as to him.  There was Dumbledore, flying off the Astronomy Tower, eyes bright in a haggard face, and agony filled Severus's deepest self.

 _Fucking hell, Severus!_ the boy shouted, and Severus felt the ghostly press of fingers into his arms.

Despair crashed around the mental landscape like an undertow, and the boy began to cry.

Severus was immediately sorry.  He could not recall why he'd wanted to show the boy such terrible things, so he thought of something better.

A beautiful, red-haired child lay on her back by the water, wearing a crown of daisies.  "Do you suppose there'll be lots of witches like me at Hogwarts?" she inquired, hopefully.

Severus shook his head.  "Lots like you?  Not a chance!"

She frowned.  "Why not?"

"You're more powerful than most of them," Severus said in his most grown-up voice.  "You'll be head o' the class, for sure."

The redhead opened bright green eyes to stare at him.  "Honest?  You're not teasing me, are you, Sev?"

Severus knelt next to her in the grass.  "Oh, no," he whispered.  "You're special, Lily."

The redhead grinned, and sat up to buss Severus on the cheek.  "You too, Sev."  Her smile flashed again.  "I'll give you the top marks in Potions and Arithmancy if I get to keep Charms and Transfigurations."

"But I promised you that you'd be head o' the class," Sev repeated, pretending to be crestfallen.

"Not _every_ class, silly," Lily said.  "But I've already got some Charms though, watch…"  Lily squeezed her eyes shut tightly and intoned, "Wing _ardium_ Levi _o_ sa," with a bit too much emphasis on the syllables to Severus's young ear, but her daisy chain hovered like a halo nonetheless.

And Severus thought, _wandless magic at ten, impossible unless undirected according to every book I've ever read,_ and _she's got Charms for sure!_ and most nonsensically and fervently, _yes, the halo suits her._   None of this was voiceable, so he clapped, passionately.

The tiny redhead flushed.  " 'S a _parlour trick_ ," she intoned.

"No, no, _Wingardium Leviosa_ is good," Severus assured her.  "You'll be fine.  Better 'n fine."

Lily grinned, bright as day.  "Fine as a frog's hair, split three ways," and they shook on it, their special handshake that only they of all people in the world knew.

The boy was shocked, discomfited, and Severus didn't understand.  This was one of his brightest, fondest memories, he _loved_ Lily, treasured every memory of her, but this was one of his favourites.

 _Tell me about Dumbledore_ , the boy repeated, and, well, _fine._

Dumbledore tumbled off the Astronomy Tower in slow motion, Severus's wand hand extended, a terrified Draco Malfoy pressed behind him.  Despair shot through Severus, grief too sharp to speak around; he felt as though he should die too, right along with the old man, and for a blinding moment he thought, _I could, I could just leap after him, no one would –_ but just as quickly as that solace presented itself, it crumpled.  He thought, _Draco,_ and _Potter,_ and _the War_ , and withdrew, dragging Draco along behind him; but somehow Draco got lost in the shuffle, either ran ahead or behind, and then he was facing an irate Potter across the fields, and _no Unforgivables for you, for Merlin's sake, Potter, don't you know what they_ are _?_   Perhaps he didn't, no decent education in Defense, none of them had.

Except this year: he'd made sure of it.  He'd protested at first, because how stupid did Dumbledore think the staff and students were?  If the Headmaster ( _tumbling, tumbling down_ ) had appointed him to the Defense position, it meant he _knew_ that Severus would be leaving.

Apparently, Dumbledore thought the staff and students were relatively dim.

Apparently, he was right, Snape decided as he faced off against Potter.  His thoughts ran together like thinner on canvas, then bled from words to impressions.  Images flashed across his consciousness: a ring, Draco's panicked face, Albus's withered hand.  Through it all was a numb, aching despair.  Over, it was all over, there was no one in the world for him, now.  And the old man had asked him, the old man had _ordered_ him –

The boy flew backwards like a cork popping out of a bottle, became an ephemeral red _presence_ , then Potter, Harry… _Harry Potter had been inside of his mind._

Severus's eyes snapped open to find that Potter was gaping at him, gasping for air, and trembling head to foot.  Severus didn't know what to say to the boy.  _Yes, I knew your mother.  She's currently haunting me._   Or perhaps: _I'm sorry he's dead, too._   Or even: _for Merlin's sake, Potter, pull it together, it's –_

It was then Potter started to cry.  He leaned forward and put his head in his hands, pulling his knees up to his chest and sobbed as though his heart would break.

Severus reached an abortive hand forward, then let it fall.  "I –" he said, then stopped.  _You what?_ he thought.  _You're sorry?  He's dead, and you can be as sorry as you like, but it's not going to bring him back for Potter._

Potter eventually wound down without Severus's help, then peered up from his knees with red-rimmed, wary eyes.  "Sorry," he said.

"It's – you frightened me," Severus said, stung into honesty.

Potter laughed, and the laugh sounded like Severus's: bitter and exhausted and strained to the point of breaking.  "No, I'm not sorry for being upset.  I think – I think that was good," he said, slowly releasing his deathgrip on his knees and allowing them to move forward away from his chest a few inches: not relaxing, but unclenching.  "I'm sorry I thought you – you _didn't_.  For calling you a coward.  You're _not a coward_.  For the Unforgivables also.  I thought –"  He shook his head.  "I don't remember what I thought."

 _Merlin, you've traumatized the boy,_ Severus thought to himself.  "It isn't as bad as it seems.  I am in perfect control of myself," he said.

Harry looked up, eyes bright and still wet.  "That's what's so scary," he whispered, and Severus couldn't help it: he laughed.

Potter blinked, and a faint smile graced his features for a bare moment before flickering away.  "The redheaded girl.  Lily…"

Severus shrugged.

"She was your best friend.  Before they took her away," Potter said, and his voice sounded so ugly that for a moment, Severus stared.  Then, he realized: he was hearing his own emotions, unfiltered save through Potter's rasping voice.

It was terrifying.

"Sorry," Potter repeated, drawing a hand over his eyes.  "Sorry.  It's – hard.  I need some time."

"I have had this time," Severus heard himself say, "and I know I am capable of finishing the work I started.  Believe me when I say I have myself under control."

Potter stared, and for a moment his green-eyed incredulity was such a twin to Lily's that Severus's breath caught in his throat.

"I am _fine_ , Potter."

Potter shuddered.  "Don't call me that.  Not now I know whatever happens when you do."

Severus was brought up short.  _Harry,_ he thought, but didn't say: something in it was far too personal.  Like what they had just done meant more than being sure of him, being sure he was on the right side.

Potter nodded, as though reading his thoughts.  Maybe he still was.  Severus certainly felt as though the boy could still see right through him.  "All right," the boy agreed.  "Evans, then."

" _Evans_ ," Severus repeated, gobsmacked.

"It is my name, isn't it?  Evans-Potter.  I'm all right with just the 'Evans' if you are."

When they emerged from the kitchens, Severus blinked away dazzling afterimages at the change in light, surprised to find Granger, Weasley, and Draco still clustered around the dining room table when surely aeons had passed down below.  Draco's head jerked up immediately, worry evident on his features, but Hermione's face was radiant.

"We've got it!" she exclaimed, gesturing with her wand in such a wild manner that Severus slid an instinctive half-step back.

Evans's features blossomed into a broad smile.  "That's brilliant, Hermione," he said sincerely – and with more than a tinge of relief.

"Well, go on, Hermione; try it!" Weasley encouraged.

But Granger demurred.  "I think…"  She snuck a glance at Draco from under her lashes that Severus could not quite interpret.  "I think we ought to all cast it.  At once."  Strangely, her gaze flitted up to Severus's own, now, and he could hear the muted echo of _would he even_ – before the girl wisely censored her thoughts and lowered her eyes.  "We're all – we've all worked for this.  So hard.  So the honor isn't just mine, and – I want to share it."  She flushed prettily, and Lily's arm slid sweetly against Severus's waist until she clasped him to her, resting her head on his shoulder.

_Oh, Severus.  Look at how earnest she is.  How earnest they all are, how they want so much to do good._

_So do I_ , Severus thought back, fiercely.  _So do I, more than any of them, I have more reason._

He glanced up to find that the children were all looking to him.  Weasley and Granger looked hopeful but dubious, and Draco's features were entirely blank.  But Potter's – Evans's face – was red.

He turned to Granger.  "Have you chosen an object as the spell's focus?"

The tension bled out of Draco, who huffed a half-laugh, ducked his head and made no further comment, or indeed intrusion.  His posture slid fluidly against the edge of the dining room table and he crossed his arms over his chest, looking disinterestedly at the kitchen door.

"We thought we'd use the locket itself," she replied.  "Ron's idea."

The redhead shrugged.  "Fewer things to look after, yeah?  And that way, any trace of the bastard'll be gone once we destroy the last one.  I don't much fancy the idea of anything hanging about with a Horcrux trace, even after the actual Horcruxes are all destroyed."

Evans smiled tiredly, probably still reeling from having to view the dark recesses of Severus's mind.  "That's a good plan.  Shall I get it?"  He was already moving to the locket's hiding place in the living room.

When he drew it out and into his hand, the children withdrew as one, repulsed.  Even Draco paled and swallowed.  "Maybe making a Horcrux into a Horcrux detector wasn't such a brilliant plan," he offered.

"No, it's a _good_ idea," Hermione insisted.

"What do you think, Professor?"

None of the other children gawped at Harry's quiet, politely phrased question, but it was a near thing.  Weasley cleared his throat and Granger blinked, as though that would make Evans's solemn expression dissolve to something else entirely.

"I think," Severus said, slowly, "that it is too dangerous to let lie, meaning we must take it with us.  And in that case, it at least ought to pay for its keep."

"That's done, then," Potter said, nodding resolutely, as though they'd all come to some sort of joint decision instead of the others deferring to him, and he in his turn deferring to Severus.  He held the locket aloft, where it seemed to absorb rather than reflect weak afternoon sunlight that shifted in through the dusky windows.

"Like this," Hermione said, demonstrating a complex, two-handed wand movement: thumb and forefinger drawing from the tip of her wand, then casting in a tight jerk towards the amulet.

Severus drew his wand, watched Draco do the same.  The blond's expression shifted from blankness to a wary readiness.  Weasley withdrew his own, and Severus was reminded fiercely and uncomfortably of the original Order of the Phoenix – Sirius and Remus and Potter indeed, only Ron looked more like his uncles the twins, and what if he were repeating all the same horrible, foolish mistakes?

 _And so?_ Lily inquired, swinging round, now, to face him.  _Sev.  The right thing isn't always the best thing.  Not for you or for anyone._

"One… two… three," Granger counted off, and Severus threw his magic forth, like dice spinning away from him, no telling where they'd land, watching the children do the same.  Their combined spells seeped into the cracks around the bits of the Dark Lord's soul until the amulet glowed molten, flashed for an instant of eye-searing whiteness.

Then, nothing.

No one breathed.  No one dared.  Severus saw Hermione take a little hitched, hurt breath out of the corner of his eye, as though the failure had twisted a sharp bit of metal into her lungs.

Then, the amulet began to swing: dizzying spirals, faster and faster… it was all Evans could do to hold on. Ron and Hermione surged forward and pressed their hands to his, keeping the locket from flying off to Merlin-knew-where.

Just as abruptly as the amulet had strained towards a destination, it swung back to center, as gravity dictated.

Or – Severus leaned forward, peered, just to be sure – not quite.  The amulet continued to swing, even as Harry held his hand perfectly still – and strained westward, arcing higher in that direction than on its backswing, east.

Harry gasped, then grinned, triumphant.  He looked up to share his joy with them, just in time to accept an armful of Hermione.  "Oomph!" Evans said, or something like it, as she knocked the air out of him.

Ron wrapped his arms around both of them, and they were a jumping, squealing mass of Gryffindor.

Severus turned to blink in surprise at Draco.

"Gryffindors," he said, deadpan.  "So dramatic.  Shall we shake hands?"

Severus swallowed.  He wanted to laugh, but he didn't think it would stay laughter for long.  "I am pleased enough, in my own way," he allowed.

"Oh, I'm sure," Draco replied in such a way that it was impossible to tell whether he meant to be sarcastic or genuine.  He was looking over at the three celebrating members of their merry little band with another one of those uncharacteristic bouts of nothingness.  He took Severus's hand in his own, and shook it.  For the first time, true emotion showed on his face.  "I'm glad you're here," he said in a funny, strangled little voice.

"Can I?" Hermione inquired at Draco's arm.  Her hand hovered a few inches over his shoulder.  "Can –"

Draco's face lost its color; across the room, Ron's head snapped up as though he'd been jerked by an Immobilus charm.  "Excuse me," Draco said, stiffly.  "I seem to recall I left the list of Horcrux clues on the first floor."  He jerked his head at Snape and withdrew to the foyer.

A moment later, Severus could hear the boy's tread as he flew up the stairs.

Hermione's hand and expression fell.  "Guess he still doesn't want to be touched by –"

" _Hermione_ ," Weasley snapped.

The Granger girl paused.  "No, Ron, I know."

"Should we go after him?" Harry wanted to know.

Hermione's features twisted.  "Harry… we don't _know_ him."

They dithered for another split second before Ron Weasley growled inarticulately and stormed up after Draco.

 _Good.  You were next in line, you realize,_ Lily said, and Severus resigned himself to dealing with hormonal teenagers on top of the War.

Harry must've caught the tail end of his confusion, because he began to say: "…Ron and Draco both –" before Severus interrupted him.

"No," he said.

"No?"

"No," Severus repeated.  "I don't care to know what ruffled Draco Malfoy's feathers, especially not since I cannot anticipate nor can I soothe the feelings of a boy who is not entirely well-balanced in the first place."

Hermione jerked up.  "I'm just going to go up and… I was only asking," she tacked on, and disappeared, presumably the way of Draco Malfoy.

Severus looked up to find that Harry was still holding the swinging Horcrux.  The boy laughed as he pocketed it, and Severus thought, _yes: please.  Let him laugh as he holds a fragment of darkness in his palm_ , strange and like poetry.  _Let him slide through the War on the same luck that brought him through flying Fords and murderous trolls, and Sibyll predicting his doom every second Tuesday._

It was the closest he'd been to prayer in years.

"Things are changing," the boy said, patting his pocket.  "I used to feel…"  He shrugged.  "Like it was me, just me, and then sometimes Ron and Hermione, too: just the three of us.  I'm glad it's not just me anymore, or even just us."

"Merlin help us, if the world rests on the shoulders of three teenaged Gryffindors."

Evans's green eyes flashed.  "Don't.  That's how it was."

"But not really, Potter."  Severus closed his eyes tightly, opened them again.  " _Evans._   Not really.  You understand that, now?  That's only the way it seemed."

Harry smiled, then, chuckled, and shook his head.  "Sorry," he said, when Severus stared, patiently awaiting explanation.  "It's just – you and Malfoy... Draco.  I have to wonder who else is on my side."

Severus thought that might be the most hopeful thing he'd heard emerge from Harry Evans-Potter's mouth.

* * *

A/N: ...aaaand here's the other half! I wanted to make this one chapter, really I did; for one thing, I believe it marks the end of Severus Snape's point of view, for now. However, it really was too cumbersome. For someone who's trying to improve her writing (and - I assume we all are?) these mid-length chapters are the way to go. You get the feedback you need to continue to write thoughtfully. If I kept both of these together... too. Much. Happens. Allatonce.

I reiterate that I am so, SO sorry about leaving out that chapter!  Hopefully Ron's alliance with Draco makes a wee bit more sense, now.  ;)  Thanks as always for your reviews - I appreciate each one.  <3

Until next time,

-K


	11. Missing

Hermione flew up the stairs, heart hammering.  She paused on the landing, head tilted to one side, straining for the susurrus of hushed conversation.  After a moment, she headed to the right, following the sounds of Ron's rumbling baritone.  Draco must have fled to Regulus's rooms.

When Hermione peered through the cracked door, the first thing she noted was the gigantic _Toujours Pur_ painted above the headboard of the bed – _horrible, just horrible_ , she thought with a shudder.  But it made sense Malfoy would flee to this particular room, if he wanted to keep her out.

She could see Ron seated on the bed beside Malfoy, who was slumped forward in a very un-Malfoy-like manner, shoulders rounded, arms hanging empty and useless between his knees.  "I shouldn't have forgotten," he was saying to the floorboards.  "I'd only just finished telling myself: _you are not at home._   It shouldn't keep surprising me like this.  I shouldn't let it."

"Sorry," Ron said, and then, "she doesn't mean it."

He was apologizing for _her_ , Hermione realized with a huff, when she'd only been asking if Draco were all right to be touched by a Mudblood!  She'd thought it was remarkably sensitive of her, really, asking if it were _all right_ for her to touch him in the first place.  For Apparition was one thing – for celebration, _communion_ , that was another.  But apparently, even _asking_ was too much of an imposition.

Malfoy said nothing in reply.  Hermione took a deep breath and considered:

 

 

 **1)** …turning around.

 **A)** Ron had already apologized for her –

 **i.)** for whatever it was she was supposed to have done!

 **B)** – and it was clear said apology moved Malfoy not at all.

 **2)** …walking into the room.

 **A)** She'd eavesdropped enough

 **B)** …and there was a natural break in the conversation.

 **3)** …knocking. If Malfoy didn't want her, he could

 **A)** easily pretend to be elsewhere, or

      **B)** ask her politely to go elsewhere.

 

 

 The last sounded most sensible, so Hermione curled her fingers and rapped.

Draco Malfoy looked up, his face full of misery, and Hermione instinctively started forward.  Why, or for what, she wasn't sure.  He'd already said – loud and clear, though not in so many words – that the very idea of touching her was repugnant.

Hermione halted when she stood a foot away from Malfoy, worrying her lower lip between her teeth and barely looking down at all – even after years of neglect, Regulus Black's mattress was still pitched high – and wondering what it was she was meant to say.

 

 

 **1)** "I'm sorry for offering to touch you, Malfoy."

 

 

 Hermione stopped there.  Nothing could make that all right.  If he felt her very blood were dirty – and he _did_ , he _did_ – what else was there to say?

Ah.

"We have to work together, Malfoy," she said, quiet.  Lines of upset were in his shoulders and around his eyes, and she could respect that, if just barely.  "I understand that I unsettled you, and I was… too familiar.  I hope you are still willing to consider helping us.  We were – working well together, and I should be very sorry if I were the reason for your departure."

 _There_ , she thought, with a satisfied little nod – no one could ask for better.

Except that Ron was looking up at her as though she'd lost her mind, and Malfoy was blinking rapidly, and suddenly Hermione realized she hadn't said anything close to the right thing, not at all.

Malfoy's eyes filled and he lowered them, quickly, as though Hermione could – could _unsee_ them.

"What?  What is it?" she demanded, desperate, gaze flickering from Ron – _disappointed –_ and back to Malfoy again.  "What have I done?"

"Nothing," Malfoy said, looking up and wiping under his eyes with the heel of his hand.  "None of it's your doing, and now I've upset you.  I'm sorry.  I apologize, I humbly…"  He paused to laugh, and the laugh sounded far from healthy.  "…prostrate myself before you, I rest upon your kindness –"

"Stop!" Hermione ordered, and then something had her moving forward again, and flinging her arms around _Draco Malfoy_ , who went, abruptly, stiff as a board.

 _Oh, what have I done_ , she thought, wildly, before his arms lifted, slowly, and cool palms pressed to the center of her back.  She squeezed him mercilessly, and he laughed again, this time sounding wondering, delighted, as though at an unexpected gift.  Hermione's mind whirred, re-arranging her mindset given current evidence:

 

 

  **1)** Malfoy jerked away from everyone's touches.

            Malfoy had been tortured (possible relevance).

 **2)** Malfoy, after characteristic initial resistance, was now leaning into her, breathing shaky and confused.

            Malfoy trusted her.

 **3)** Malfoy had wept when she expressed her view of him.

            The thought that Hermione disapproved of him was painful.

 

 

 "Well, hello," Malfoy said into her hair, after a long moment.

Hermione drew back, flushing with embarrassment.  "Sorry."

"That was what you wanted downstairs?" the blond boy inquired.

"Yes," she agreed.  "But I didn't think you'd want –"

"I don't mind," Malfoy said, rushed.  "I don't mind at all, I miss –"  He pinked.  "All you tactile Gryffindors have me at a loss, sometimes.  But when in Rome and all."

"Shut up," Ron said, fiercely, and pulled Malfoy towards him in a one-armed hug.

Hermione pulled them both to her again, and if they toppled over a bit, no one was around to see.

"Whoa!" Malfoy exclaimed.  "Steady on, Hermione, you'll damage me.  I've only just come from the last breaking, after all."

She rolled away, staring at the ceiling.  "That's terrible, Malfoy; don't say that."

"I like to think somebody's tempering a sword," Malfoy replied, which shouldn't have made sense to her, but it did, in a Malfoyish sort of way.  "Enough of this and I'll be indestructible."

"Flaw in your thinking, mate," Ron said from Draco's other side, propped up so that he could view the both of them.  "Keep throwing yourself in the path of danger and you're much more likely to die than come out stronger through the other side."

Malfoy's grey eyes dulled.  "Doesn't matter.  Got to get home.  And to get home, I still need Remus Lupin to make the full set."

Hermione rolled on her side to stare at him.  "Remus Lupin?" she echoed.

The boy beside her nodded.  "Then I'll have all the great minds who engineered the portal that brought me here.  And then I can get Ron and we can go home."  He closed his eyes tightly, blinking at the ceiling.  "I need to go home.  The Professor must be sick with worry, and Harry'll be blaming himself as usual.  What if my mother's tried to contact me, but I haven't been around to receive her messages?  I was supposed to stay at the Burrow two weeks ago, Mrs. Weasley'll murder us both when we get back.  If the plot to bring Sirius back actually worked, we were going to get out of Harry and Black's way and stay at the Burrow and then go into London."  He closed his eyes again, as though the words pained him.  "Hermione was going to buy me a jumper."

"Remus Lupin," Hermione repeated, bringing him back on track.  "That's not all that hard."

Malfoy opened his eyes and blinked – one tear leaked out of the corner of his eye, and he reached up to absently swipe it away.  "It's not?"

"No.  I wish you'd said so.  It's easy enough to ask him to come here.  I'm not sure Harry'll like it…"

Ron's features crumpled.  "I dunno, Hermione.  Remus Lupin's been… funny, lately."

"Funny?" Draco inquired, turning to look at Ron.  "Funny how?"

Ron shrugged.  "Hard to put my finger on it.  But his temper's closer to the surface."

"Remus Lupin _has_ a temper?" Draco inquired with a quirk of his lips.  "That I'd love to see."

"You wouldn't," Ron countered with a shake of his head.  "Don't forget he's a werewolf, Malfoy.  He gets angry and you won't like what you see."

"He's Remus," Draco replied, as though that settled things.  "Hermione, if you could get him to come here…"

"I'm on it," she replied, reaching out and squeezing his hand in hers.

Draco's features lit up, and his entire frame relaxed.  "Thanks, Hermione.  Thanks, Ron.  I'd better go see the others and tell them I haven't murdered you, given the chance and opportunity."  He rose, fluidly, smoothing his hair, and headed for the door.

"No one thinks that," Ron blurted, just as Draco reached the door.

Draco froze mid-step; then, he inclined his head without turning and was gone.

Hermione let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding in her chest – it departed with a dejected-sounding hiss.

"Not the same bloke, is he?" Ron inquired, to her right.

"Not remotely," she replied, still staring at the ceiling.  The ancient roof had been leaking, she noted, eyes trailing off to a slightly darker patch.

"Do you believe him?"

Hermione's eyes traced the pattern of the cracks in the ceiling as she shuffled her information and frowned.  "I can't escape the impression we're being taken in, somehow," she replied.  "That the moment I start to trust him, he'll betray us."

Ron's eyes were on her again; she could feel them on her skin.

"Do you feel like you've known him?  Well, I mean," Hermione said.  "Like, for a long time."

"Yeah," Ron said, surprise evident in his voice.  "You too?"

"It's because he knows _us_ so well," Hermione said.  "He gives you his trust and you can't help but want to be the friend he remembers."

"Easier than you'd think, actually.  Sometimes I think he could charm He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, himself, if he tried."

Hermione pulled herself to her feet.  "How do I contact Professor Lupin?  It's not like we brought Hedwig, and I'm not sure my Patronus can travel that far."

"Floo, then," Ron supplied with a growing grin.

"What?" Hermione inquired, pulling her hair into a knot at the back of her head – her standard response to work, getting her hands dirty.

"Just picturing old Lupin's face when he realizes where we are," Ron said.

"Oh, hush, you," Hermione ordered, then leaned down to buss him on the cheek.

"What was that for?" Ron had flushed bright pink, and clapped his hand to his cheek.

"I don't know – for looking out for all of us, I suppose," Hermione stammered, flustered, herself.  "Off I go – wish me luck – where's Floo powder?"

"Thought I saw some of the old stuff by the fireplace in the downstairs library," Ron said, "in the container made of budgie skulls."

"Of course," Hermione replied darkly, and swept out: _Toujours Pur_ indeed!

 

Holding the Floo powder ( _slightly discolored; old; possibly defunct_ ) in one hand, Hermione paused.

Where _was_ Remus Lupin?

She couldn't simply tell Hedwig, or her Patronus to find him.  Floo powder was more… specific.  Very, in fact: a slight mispronunciation had landed Harry in Knockturn, once.

Of course she could call the Castle.

And say what, exactly?

Merlin – this task Malfoy had given her was tougher than it at first appeared.

Hermione busied herself awhile building up the fire in the grate while she pondered: stoking it with the poker, adding bits of paper and tiny branches until it burned and crackled merrily.  She knew that she would have to:

 

 

 **1)** Contact Remus Lupin.

 **2)** Inform him of their location.

 **3)** Tell him to come straightaway.

 **4)** All without letting on to others at Hogwarts:

 **A)** Whom she was.

 **B)** Whom she was with.

 **C)** Where she was located.

 **5)** This meant she needed to:

 **A)** Wear some other face,

 **i.)** And/or disguise her voice.

 **1)** Using Polyjuice?

 **a)** Sending a written missive through the Floo might circumvent this.

 **B)** Indicate who she was without anyone but Remus understanding her.

 **i.)** By referencing a shared experience.

 **C)** Indicate her current location without anyone but Remus understanding her.

            **i.)** By referencing Sirius Black in some roundabout fashion.

 

 

Writing a letter seemed the most expedient method.  She reached for the nearby writing-desk and procured some parchment and ink.  She stared at it for a moment, wondering if there were some way that the choice of paper and ink itself could reveal her, but after a moment dismissed the thought.  Both were mid-range quality, both easily obtained at Scrivenshaft's, and newer – probably a member of the Order had left them here, rather than any of the original Blacks.

She used a spell to disguise her hand and began to write:

 

> _Remus Lupin_ , (she began – she considered and rejected being more oblique here, but the letter would have to reach him, after all).
> 
> _I am writing to inform you that I have stumbled across something you seem to have lost.  The item is still, at present, in the condition you left it.  It's funny how these things turn up in the most unexpected of places: you once lost something that belonged here, and now something that belongs to you has been lost, here.  Come at your earliest convenience._

 

Hermione eyed the missive critically, tilting it this way and that and blowing on the ink.  _Something lost_ was a horrible way to refer to Sirius, but changing it to some _one_ revealed her hand, and she thought Remus would understand and forgive her – once he realized who'd written the note, of course.  Hermione hadn't been able to work in who she was without alerting anyone else: she and her Professor simply hadn't been that close, and those in the know could probably recite the Trio's antics ad verbatim.  It wasn't worth the risk.

She cast about for any sealing-wax before deciding that was a terrifically horrible idea.  Even if the paper weren't recognized, the sealing-wax of the House of Black could very well be quite revealing to the right eye.

"Very well," she said, aloud.  She cast a spell to remove fingerprints and magical signatures of all kinds and tossed the Floo powder into the roaring flames.  _Let him still be at Hogwarts!_ she thought, eyes closed tight.  "Hogwarts Castle of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Remus Lupin's Rooms!" she exclaimed, and threw the parchment into the sparkling green.

" _NO!_ "

Hermione whirled to find Severus Snape rushing into the room.  He shoved her aside so roughly that she went sprawling, banging the side of her head against the bellows neatly hooked to the wall.  Snape reached through the flames for the letter, then fell forward.

It took Hermione longer than it should have to realize he was being _dragged_.

"No!" she shouted.  "Harry! Ron! Draco! HELP!"  She threw herself at her old professor and latched onto his waist, planting her feet solidly into the hearthstones and pulling back with all her might.  Harry flew into the room seconds later.  "Harry!" she shouted.

Harry threw himself forward and grabbed onto Professor Snape's knees.

Hermione could barely see through her tears, but she kept a vise-like grip on Snape, no matter how her arms ached.

Ron and Draco appeared in the doorway, much to Hermione's relief; after another moment, Severus Snape popped back out of the hearth like a cork from a bottle, and the lot of them landed in a panting, huffing heap.

"Are you all right?" Harry demanded, pulling Snape to his feet, then turning to stare at them each, in turn.  "Are we all all right?"

Hermione snuffled but nodded, rubbing at the back of her head.

Snape shook his head rapidly, but the motion seemed less of a negation and more for the purpose of getting his bearings.  Once he seemed more settled, he rounded on Hermione.  "Of all the stupid, short-sighted _Gryffindor_ things to do!" he roared.  "Writing a friend at school, were we?  Telling her of all your little adventures?  _Ginevra Weasley – Neville Longbottom_?"

"Don't you talk about Ginny," Harry and Ron said in eerie unison.

"I wasn't writing a _friend_ ," Hermione squeaked, determined to ride out the storm.  "I needed to contact Remus Lupin."

Snape's features drained of all color so fast that Hermione thought he might begin to sway, or even lose consciousness.  "Remus… _Lupin_ ," he echoed dimly, his eyes tracing around the room, as though he hoped to find an escape or a weapon close to hand.  "What on earth possessed you to contact Remus Lupin?"

"Draco needed to talk to him," Hermione replied, simply, and then it was as though she heard her own words from her professor's ears.  She flushed.  "Where's the harm in that?"

"Where's the harm?" Snape seemed doomed to repeating her words with growing incredulity.  "He'll believe the letter came from me, of course!"

Hermione shook her head.  "That's not –" Then she paused.

 

 

 **1)** The ink she'd used, and the paper, was left here by an Order member. Could that Order member have been Snape?

 **A)** If that were the case, Remus would recognize the paper, and the ink.

 **2)** Snape's fingers were smeared with said ink.

 **A)** He'd held Hermione's missive, maybe grasped it briefly before it was taken from him.

 **B)** It would hold his fingerprints.

 **C)** It would hold his magical signature.

 **3)** The way in which she'd written the letter – _oh, Merlin_ – now seemed more like a ransom note than a friendly invitation. At least:

      **A)** Viewed as Remus would view a missive from Severus Snape.

 

 

Hermione deflated.  "Oh… _no_ ," she said.

" _Now_ you begin to realize the foolhardiness of your actions!" Snape roared.  "Now and only now!  Save me from do-gooder Gryffindors!  Did you suppose you'd reconcile him to the idea of _working with me_?  Did you suppose that was _possible_?"  He whirled on Draco.  "This is what you get for putting notions in their heads – Remus Lupin will put us both in Azkaban in an instant – he won't think twice, he'll be doing his duty! – and these three will be left to manage on their own!"

Malfoy rose to his feet.  "You're not being helpful, Professor," he said.  "What's the worst-case scenario?"

"Remus'll come back through here wand-first," Harry blurted, "hurt or kill you or Snape or both, maybe accidentally injure one of us in the process.  Send me to St. Mungo's, thinking I've…"

"…got Stockholm Syndrome," Hermione filled in, nodding.

"…or worse.  The entire quest is derailed…"

Ron snorted.  "You called it a _quest._   Aloud."

"…Voldemort wins, everybody dies."

"Thank you for putting that into perspective."  Draco closed his eyes a moment, then opened them.  "Right.  So we've got to get out of here."

"But you needed to see Professor Lupin!" Hermione exclaimed.  "That was the whole reason –!"

"I still will.  I'll stay behind."

Absolute silence followed this pronouncement; then, everybody spoke at once.

"That's absolutely mad" – that from Harry.  A simple _no_ from Ron.  Snape started to say _I promised your mother_ – but cut off when he was drowned out by everyone else's voice.

"I refuse to allow you to stay behind," Snape said, once everyone had quieted.  "Your safety is my safety."

Hermione tried to parse that, she really did, but her mind was whirring at a thousand beats a minute.  The only conclusion she could come to (a promise; Snape's well-being linked to Draco's) was an Unbreakable Vow.

 

 

 **1)** Meaning Draco could not stay.

 **2)** Harry couldn't stay, either.

 **A)** Harry's presence seemed to make Lupin more emotional.

 **B)** Lupin would whisk Harry away without another thought.

 **i.)** Possibly to wrap him up in cotton-wool, making it impossible for Harry to find the Horcruxes.

 **ii.)** Possibly to head the Horcrux hunt himself, using the Order to do the heavy lifting.

Dumbledore hadn't thought that was a good idea, and neither did Hermione.

 **3)** Ron wasn't so good at talking things out, or being all that convincing.

 **4)** Lupin might, in fact, kill Snape on sight.

 

 

 "I'll stay," Hermione said.

The others turned to stare.

"Draco needs Lupin," she said, firmly.  "And I believe we need him to help us with the hunt.  Professor Lupin… knows things.  And I believe – no one'll notice he's missing," she added, tentative.  "A werewolf, without even a proper job… he has no one who's expecting him to be anyplace."

"You will not convince him to work with me," Snape repeated, as though that alone would convince _her_.  "He will shut you up in St. Mungo's.  He will Obliviate you, rather than have you carry word that I am…"

" _Innocent_ ," Harry said with surprising vehemence.

She noted that the Professor hadn't claimed they didn't need Lupin.  "Worth the risk," she returned.

Snape stared at her for a long, silent moment.  Then, he offered her a curt nod, and flew up the stairs.  In someone else, the behavior might have seemed dismissive, but Hermione knew, oddly, that this was Snape's way of giving in, of agreeing, which he was not capable of doing gracefully.  He was gathering the things they'd need, in order to leave at a moment's notice.

"We'll Apparate to the Manor, the place we memorized," Harry said.

"You're mad," Draco said, "but very, very brave, Hermione Granger.  Though I suppose that's the quintessential Gryffindor for you."

"You'll catch up with us there," Ron said, and he was going to the place he had stored his toiletries, change-of-clothes – they'd been ready to leave at a moment's notice for ages.  Harry rifled through his pockets and showed them all the Horcrux-detector, then shook his head.

"Here, Hermione," he said, pressing it into her hand.  "Maybe it'll help convince Remus…"

But it was all happening so fast.  Hermione watched the others run about the room, checking food and water supplies and going through the final preparations of which she had always thought she would be a part.

Except Draco, who was still staring at her, oddly.  "…can you disarm him?" he eventually inquired, as though they were continuing a conversation they'd begun long ago.

"My wandwork is quick," she replied, "but I hadn't thought that was the best opening salvo.  So to speak."

He ducked his head and laughed, and Hermione was surprised when it emerged pleasant, if a little panicky.  She realized she'd never heard Draco Malfoy laugh when he wasn't being mean-spirited.  "Merlin, Granger, no.  _Disarm_ as in _charm_."  He took her by the shoulders, stared into her eyes.  "You're going to have to convince him that a murder he half-witnessed is a lie… or at least, in enough doubt that he won't cast _Avada_ at the first chance.  It's a tall order."

Hermione nodded.  "I… I know," she replied, marshaling all of her logic behind her eyes.

"Appeal to his sense of mercy.  Say you know he's the better man –"

Hermione was about to ask how Draco knew so much about what was most apt to convince Remus Lupin, but just then Snape arrived at their side, bag slung over one shoulder.  Draco's palms slid down her arms, and he offered her a brave smile.  "You are brilliant, you know," he told her.  "Don't get yourself killed."

"Same to you," Hermione replied, shoulders still tingling from the loss of contact.

There was a rattle at the door; Hermione's head jerked to the entryway of Twelve Grimmauld, her heart rate leaping to what felt like perhaps one hundred-twenty beats per minute in a blink's time.  Which made no sense; it was only Remus, only her old professor, with his shabby clothes and threadbare smile.

Draco threw his arms around her, fierce; then, almost before Hermione could process the sensation, he released her to jog to the fireplace and throw Floo powder into the grate.  " _Iridian Manor!_ " he exclaimed, and stepped through.

The Iridians had disappeared from the dossier of purebloods generations ago, and the question of which bastard held rights to the Manor had been held in dispute for so long that the old place had long since been abandoned and forgotten – but the fireplace was still intact.

"Hermione –" Ron stammered.

The front door rattled ominously on his hinges.

"I'll manage! Go!" she shouted, then barely held onto a sob as Harry and Ron crushed her to them at once before rushing through the Floo.

Severus Snape stared after her the longest, frowning.  "Be… more Slytherin," was his cryptic order before he disappeared through the fire.

Hermione ran to the grate and kicked and shuffled the ashes around until the flames sputtered and died and the room filled with smoke.

 _More Slytherin,_ she thought, as she smoothed her skirt and tucked a stray hair behind her ear.  _More Slytherin,_ she reiterated as she strode purposefully across the wooden floor, feeling its subtle warmth against her bare feet.

"More Slytherin, then," she whispered to herself, and opened the front door to Twelve Grimmauld.

"Professor Lupin!" she exclaimed when she saw him.  A bit inane, but surprise was the best she could come up with on such short notice.  It wasn't as though she actually _were_ a Slytherin, after all.  She was going to have to think on her feet: always the part of the exam she dreaded the most, the _practical._

She peered out to the stoop behind him, startled that he'd come alone: what a surprise _that_ was.

Lupin himself looked a little worse for wear.  He was thinner than she remembered, even sickly-looking.  She tried and failed to recall if it were close to the full moon or not; but then, her mind was racing a million miles a minute.  She had just enough presence of mind to put herself in Lupin's shoes: if she'd thought Harry was kidnapped, and she were already sick, besides, she'd want comfort.

"You look like you _ran_ here from the Castle," she said – in a near-perfect imitation of Mrs. Weasley's disapproving, motherly tones, if she did say so herself.  "Come inside, quickly, before anybody catches sight of you."

Lupin obeyed.  He still hadn't said a word, and his eyes scanned the entryway as though he didn't trust it not to lash out against him.  Though, Hermione would admit, certainly Twelve Grimmauld gave more or less everybody that impression.  "Where's Harry?" he inquired, once the hallway proved to be no challenge.

Now that his focus was on her, Hermione gulped.  _Ron was right,_ she realized, examining him.  There was something about him, about the way he held himself, about his flinty eyes, that was harder than she remembered.  Just now he was staring at her as though he supposed she might be the right hand of Voldemort himself, or maybe the leader of a third faction whose agenda was yet to be revealed.  "Harry's _fine_ ," she said.  "Come into the dining room and have a cuppa.  I'm sure you could use one."

The persistent mothering finally paid off, as Lupin's tense shoulders lowered the tiniest of fractions, and an expression of doubt blended with (though did not entirely replace) the hardness.  He followed Hermione into the dining room, but did not seat himself.  "Where are Harry and Ron?"

"The others ran," she said, plainly, heating some water with a wave of her wand and setting the tea to steep.  "I stayed behind, to talk to you."

"They _ran_ ," Lupin repeated.

She nodded.  "And I stayed.  We need your help, and I chose to be the –"

 

 

 **1)** …group's?

 **2)** …team's?

 **3)** …Horcrux Hunters'?

 **4)** none of the above, _Merlin._

 

 

 "…emissary."

Lupin's features turned mulish.  "I want to see Harry.  I need to know he's safe."

"And you will," she said.  "But not until we've hammered a few things out."  She handed him the cup of tea.  "Cream?  Sugar?  You'll have to forgive me, I can't quite recall how you take it, if I ever knew."

Color rose in Lupin's face and he whirled away from her to pace.  "You'll be offering lemon drops, next!" he growled.  " _I will see Harry.  Now_."

Hermione wondered if this was how Dumbledore felt.  Of _course_ she couldn't give Lupin all the information right away, not before she knew how he'd use it.  "That's not the case, no matter how emphatically you say so," she returned, sharply.  "I promised you that he was safe.  Do you believe I'd tell you he was safe if he weren't?  I'm not trying to torture you.  I'm trying to _keep_ Harry safe.  Now: cream?  Sugar?"

Hermione experienced an odd thrill when Lupin eyed her from under his lashes and finally jerked his head in the affirmative and sat down.  "Lots of both."  He then sat, with his knee bobbing arrhythmically, while Hermione poured.

It was funny how little rituals like serving tea could calm even a desperate werewolf, Hermione reflected as Lupin's spasmodic bouncing grew less pronounced over the next minute or so.  When she pushed the plate of biscuits closer to Lupin, he took one exactly as rapidly as was polite.

Hermione, looking at him with keener eyes, wondered at that.  Hadn't he been at Hogwarts?  Hadn't he been _eating_ there?  Food was abundant at Hogwarts, so: he wasn't eating out of choice.  And yet, put food before him, and he… well, for lack of a better term, _wolfed_ it down immediately.

No one at Hogwarts was making him eat.  If they were trying, he had successfully resisted their efforts.  Out of grief?  Guilt?

Lupin finished his tea and all of the biscuits but one – which Hermione took, to show that sharing-food solidarity that she had learned was important via the Weasley family – and there was nothing left to do but explain.

Right.

"I wrote that letter, and not Severus Snape," she began.

To his credit, he merely stared, without calling her a liar outright.  "How do I know you're _not_ Severus Snape?" he inquired.

Hermione cursed her brain for running so slowly.  Of course he'd suppose that she – she frowned.  "You don't think I'm Severus Snape!" she retorted, glaring at his tea – the tea he had sipped at quietly and without much but a token protest for the past five minutes.  "You know I'm just who I say I am!  _How_ you know I don't know, but you _do_!"

Lupin smiled at her.  "Unmistakably Hermione Granger," he replied wryly.

"Thank you," she said, her ruffled feathers smoothing, somewhat.  "I think."

"I suppose I could ask you some questions to be sure," he went on.

"You couldn't," she replied.  "See, that's what I thought of when I was writing the letter, Professor.  I know you, but mostly through Harry; there's very little I could say to prove myself that someone else couldn't have discovered as well.  Things about Sirius, maybe, about Buckbeak, perhaps.  But the Death Eaters know a lot about both.  And even about – Wormtail.  I could tell you what my Boggart turned into, but the whole class saw; what does that prove?  So in the end, I put no clue as to my identity in the letter.  Professor Snape saw me sending a message during a supposedly secret mission and leapt after it.  That got his magical signature and fingerprints all over it.  That's why you thought it was from him."

"Severus Snape was here?" Lupin inquired, after a long moment of silence.  "Harry's changed his story, then, about who killed the Headmaster?"

Hermione thought his voice sounded brittle, as though he were just barely holding back ... _something…_ but his expression was too stony to tell _what_ , precisely.  "No.  Or, not exactly."  She closed her eyes and pondered.

Lupin said nothing during this time, thank Merlin; she thought she might lose all ability to convince him if he continued to act out of temper.

"One," Hermione said, eyes still closed.  "Professor Dumbledore put Professor Snape in as the DADA Professor.  Which, a) implies he knew he would leave.  _Don't interrupt_ ," she said, when she heard Lupin take in a breath to speak.  "It also b) implies he wanted others to guess that he knew Snape would leave, because i) that's way too obvious for _no one_ to catch."  She took a steady breath and opened her eyes, but Lupin didn't look like he was ready to interrupt, anymore.  He had that dubious expression on his face again, and that gave her hope.

"Two," she went on, gazing at her hands on the scratched dining room table.  "Dumbledore's hand was injured, some kind of rotting, dark-magical infection.  A) We know Dumbledore didn't practice black magic; he was a Light wizard, through and through.  So, b) Dumbledore probably was trying to _break_ a dark curse or destroy a dark object."

"Three," she said, then paused.  She wasn't sure she should say this, as it was told to her in confidence, but she believed it integral to carrying out the task of convincing Lupin.  She stared into his features for a long moment before continuing.  "By Harry's own admission, he fed poison to Dumbledore the night he died.  This was to obtain and destroy a magical object called a Horcrux –"  She checked for recognition in Lupin's features, found none –  "...meaning that, a) Likely Dumbledore's wounded hand was also due to a Horcrux search; and b) it is more than likely that Dumbledore knew he would die that night...

"Four.  What Harry saw wasn't conclusive," she said.  "Dumbledore, according to Harry, said, _Severus, please_ , which can have meant any number of things."

Hermione took in a slow breath.  This last one wasn't going to be easy, because it was not particularly logical.  " _Harryalsotrustshim_ ," she blurted.

"Wait.  Repeat that last one."

Hermione worried her lower lip between her teeth.  "Professor Snape and Harry went down into the kitchens together, and me and Ron and Draco thought they might kill each other, so we were keeping a careful ear out.  But when they came up, Harry… and Professor Snape!... were… _cordial_."

"Did Imperius not come to mind?"

Hermione shook her head.  But then, Lupin hadn't seen Snape: _broken, discarded, thinner and madder-looking than you._

" _Harry also trusts him_ ," Lupin repeated slowly, as though tasting the words.  "Dumbledore did, too."

"And I think Snape came through for him in a way he had no right to expect," Hermione snapped back, tartly.  "I think Dumbledore ordered Snape to kill him so that Draco wouldn't have to, and to cement Snape's position amongst the Death Eaters, and because he was dying anyway and he'd rather go out with a bang than a whimper, and perhaps because of a half-dozen other reasons that will never be clear to anyone but him.  I think – I think it _broke_ Snape, and it would break me, too, if someone I thought of as a father had – and then to be forced to leave my home and go _live with He Who Must Not Be Named_ , instead, and lose my job, and any respect I'd earned –"  Hermione broke off, blinking back tears.  "Just – imagine it _is_ true, for just one moment," she said.  "Imagine how you'd feel, if that were you."

She saw the moment Lupin understood; his features twisted with unwilling sympathy, and he blinked in surprise.

 _Yes!_ she thought, feeling a wavery smile tug at her lips.  She'd done it!  She could bring Lupin to the others, and let Snape do the rest of the convincing.  She bounded to her feet.  "Good!  Right.  Let's go, then."

Lupin looked up, still wearing that same frown.  "Go?"

"To Harry?  You wanted to see him, didn't you?"

He stared at her for another moment.  "Yeeess," he drawled.

She moved to take his arm and tug him to his feet.  "Now, then."

"Now?"

Hermione nodded, digging under the table until she'd found her satchel, stuffing all of their research inside.  "Now," she replied, and trotted off to the study and the Floo powder.

When Hermione stepped out of the fireplace at Iridian Manor, a blast of moor wind nearly unseated her.

The roof was caved in all around she and Lupin, and long since buried by encroaching foliage or stolen by scavengers looking for wood or slate or scrap metal.  Only two of the walls were still standing, and they did nothing to protect Hermione and Lupin from the prevailing winds.  Behind Hermione was one stone fireplace; ahead of her stood another, though that one, with its cast-iron spit, looked as though it was less for transportation and more for roasting.  Hermione cast about the windy plain, a triumphant grin on her face.

"Harry!" she shouted.  "Ron!"

She flew out beyond the two walls and ran in a circuit around the derelict Manor, coming back to Lupin.

…who had drawn his wand.

Hermione drew hers.  "Where are they?" she whispered.

"Hush," he advised.  "They may be using the Disillusionment charm, and they will drop it, presently."

But her companions remained stubbornly absent.

Hermione's long hair whipped into her eyes, her mouth, and she impatiently re-did it up in a knot at the back of her neck.

Lupin, meanwhile, was canvassing the area.  "Hermione!"

Hermione trotted up to him.  "What is it?"  She followed his line of sight into the tall summer grasses.

It was a wand.  Broken in two.  The halves joined only by the smallest fragments of splintered wood.  Hermione, looking down at it, felt her vision go funny, too funny to tell if the shattered wand was the queerly marbled yew, the tawny gold of willow, or…

"You fools," Lupin said, whirling on her.  "How stupid do you have to be, to trust Severus Snape after what he's done?  Are you so willfully blind?  And now," he said, running distracted hands through his sandy hair, "and now…"

He screamed then, so suddenly and so loudly that Hermione stumbled backward, and tripped.  When she scrambled her way upward, her fingers encountered the cold rasp of metal and the near-familiar feel, now, of a particular malevolence.  She clambered to her feet and held the locket out before her, where it swirled to and fro before swinging east, far higher than it had at Twelve Grimmauld.  She pressed her free hand to her lips.  Could the Horcrux have left Traces of its magic on Harry – could it be following after _him_?

"What is that?  What are you doing?" Remus demanded.

Hermione jerked her head towards the amulet.  "We may be able to find Harry using this.  As for Professor Snape, there are dozens of possible explanations as to why they've all disappeared…"

"Are you still so foolish as to discount the most obvious?" the older wizard barked, his eyes wild.

Hermione felt her brow furrow.  "You suppose it was my prowess alone that was holding him back, Professor?  What's one underage witch one way or the other?"  But she wasn't really looking at Professor Lupin.  Instead, she was looking at the pendulum.  "Do you suppose they could have been taken to Malfoy Manor?" she inquired, trying to sound brave and steady and hoping she'd half managed it.  "Wiltshire is east of Iridian Manor."

"Undoubtedly that is just where the Snatchers have taken them," Lupin said, pressing a hand to his face and seeming to shrink before Hermione's eyes.  "We will have to get the Order involved.  You'll come with me."

Hermione ignored the question of the Snatchers to raise her eyebrows.  "You mistake me, Professor, if you believe for a moment I'll do the safest, and yet the least _sensible_ thing.  Calling in the entire Order would mean we could only face the Death Eaters in open war.  Doesn't it make more sense to slip in and out of the Manor more or less unnoticed? …and to do that you and I should go in alone."

Lupin stared at her as though she'd lost her mind completely.

This wasn't what going mad felt like, though, Hermione was relatively certain.  Her entire body was filled up with a determination so fierce that she felt she stood a few inches taller.  Her mind was whirring with the sharp, crystal clarity bestowed by a steady stream of ambient adrenaline, and her own wand – vine, dragon heartstring, 10 ¾ inches – was gripped tightly in her right hand.

"We are going to go rescue Harry and the others from Malfoy Manor," she said, voice clear.  "We are going to plan well and move quickly and no one is even going to know we were there until it is _far too late._ "  She turned to face Lupin.  "As for Snape, you came to see him alone.  Either you do still trust him and you wanted to talk to him one-on-one, or you were hoping to duel.  Which was it?"

When Lupin stared, wordless, Hermione blinked.

"You didn't know which!"

"I do now!" Lupin barked.

"Well, you're much more likely to get your wish – either of your wishes! – through stealth, aren't you?" Hermione prodded.  "Severus Snape is a tricksome sort of wizard."  There was no doubt in Hermione's mind as to Snape's loyalties: _fool me once!_ she thought, with a grimace.  Which meant he was in every bit as much trouble as Harry, if not more.  "He'll run the moment he has a chance," she added, entirely truthfully.  She tucked the amulet in the pocket of her robes and took Lupin's arm.

"You are coming?" she inquired, then Apparated them both without awaiting an answer.

Maybe it was a little Slytherin, but she was pretty certain he wouldn't be able to resist helping her once Malfoy Manor - and more importantly, the promise of Harry, and revenge - were in his sights.

* * *

A/N: Okay, so obviously experimental here, folks. On nicely-spaced MS Word, Hermione's outlined thoughts did NOT seem quite so daring as they do here.  The linebreaks make it seem a little more dramatic, and I'm sure I'm going to continue to mess with them even after they're posted.

So: too much? If you think so, let me know. I tried it several ways (even previewed it), but let me know if this is craziness.

Also: Hermione! I wrote from Hermione's POV! For the *first time*. Let me know on that score, too. Is it Hermione?

Lupin is the one character I struggle with in GoG, which is really weird since I really _had_ him in SoS.  This might be because I 'get' early-series Lupin, but latter-day Lupin presents with some Issues.  The way Lupin shyly introduces himself as a mentor in Book 3 and then practically disappears out of the narrative would be pretty awful for Harry if he'd grown to depend on Lupin at all.  Then I think about how Lupin isn't used to permanence (he was probably moved all over as a little boy so that no one guessed his affliction) and thinks it's normal to phase in and out of others' lives, even loved ones, and my heart breaks for him a little.  So he's going to be a sympathetic a$$hole type here, I guess, because of his background... I hope you'll let me know how I do with him, if he is a 'believable' character here, and if you understand his motivations as we move forward.

Your comments are awesome and helpful guys, even if they say "It was good.  I like the things."

 

-K


	12. Run!

"Excellent; right on time," said Snape when the scraggly group of men surrounded them, which was certainly not Draco's first thought.

"Snape," said one of them with a low growl.  "What're you doing here?"

Snape sidled forward until his voluminous robes hid Harry, Ron and Draco almost completely.  "Fulfilling the Dark Lord's plans for the Boy Saviour," Snape said in the icy tone he reserved for Longbottoms, Potters, and other fools who dared waste his time.  "The young Malfoy heir has achieved his purpose and netted The Boy Who Lived.  I am escorting them all back to Malfoy Manor."

The man in front elbowed his friend and attempted to peer behind Snape who, without seeming to shift at all, continued to block their route to Harry.  "Going – awful quiet-like, ain't they?" he inquired of his men.

Snape lifted his nose.  "They are _Imperio_ 'd," he said shortly.  The _you dunderhead_ was quite clearly implied.

For a moment of wonder, Draco thought the men would let them be on their merry way.  They looked as though they weren't the brightest of sorts; unkempt and shiftless, they looked, in fact, like the sort who'd do anything asked of them for a bit of coin.

Then, a faint spark glimmered in the darkness of the ringleader's eyes.  "Wot, all of 'em?" he challenged.

"Of course not," Draco said imperiously, moving to stand at Snape's side.  "I've got Weasley; he's got Potter."  He hoped he'd infused enough hatred for Potter and awe at Snape's prowess into his words; from Snape's exasperated glance, he'd used too much of one or the other.

" _The Boy Who Lived_ ," one of the men towards the back muttered, staring at Harry, awestruck.  It looked as though the thought had finally sunk in to his thick skull.

"Yeah, tha's right.  And we ain't sharing the credit, are we, boys?" the leader inquired with a nasty smirk.

Snape's features froze, but his eyes danced.  Draco could almost see him calculating the odds.

"You two could run any time, now," Draco hissed behind him.

"Are you mad?" Ron hissed in return.  "They'd shoot us down before we could spring two steps."

"I've tried to Apparate several times," replied Harry's most panicked voice.

Draco blinked up at Snape.  "…Run?" he suggested.

"Stay behind me," Snape replied, herding Draco behind him with the others, as though he were shooing ducklings.

"Right," Draco snorted, and drew.  "You will never rise in my Lord's estimation by stealing the credit that belongs to your betters," he shouted, waving his wand about in what he hoped to be a threatening manner.

He took a Stunner to the side of the head before he could so much as fire off a curse.

When Draco came to, the unsavoury men were gone and Death Eaters were in their place.  Not that it was _much_ of an improvement, or any kind at all, really, but that he no longer got the impression he was about to be shivved and left in a ditch.  Snape looked pale but determined, with a long, bloody scratch on one cheek; one of his sleeves was steaming foul red smoke.  He still clutched his wand in one pale, steady hand.

They were at an encampment with tents and torches – the sun was now low in the sky – but the land looked devilishly familiar, down to the oak tree with the twisted knot at its centre –

Ah.  Malfoy land, then.  Draco scanned the horizon until he could see the tiles of the Manor's roof, hiding beyond the hills, and the evergreen-studded pathway that snaked up to the manse.

" 'Lo, young Malfoy," a broad-shouldered brute greeted him.  "Able to stand, now?"

Draco pushed himself to his feet.  "Yes, thank you indeed, Rowle."  He peered around at the tents.  "Are we hosting an army?"

"Gathering one, Malfoy, gathering one," Rowle replied, and Draco blinked in surprise.  For Merlin's sake, he hadn't been serious.  But now that he looked around, he could see that this could be nothing but the mustering of a host.

Ron and Harry were not anyplace to be seen.

"Reckon you'll want to get back to Hogwarts, now Mistress Malfoy is going," Rowle commented.  "Now your job is done with the Potter boy."

"Just so," Draco replied, watching Snape cast at his still-smoking arm, but the older man looked more irritated than injured.  "How did you know to find us?"

"Snape's a clever one, he said the magic word," Dolohov said, coming up beside Rowle.  "Not that he mayn't pay for it later, I suppose, but, in the circumstances…"

"Of course," Draco agreed, having no idea what he was agreeing to, but making sure that his expression was suffused with concern.  "Do you know where my mother is just now?"

"Offices, getting ready," Rowle replied, "and I certainly don't envy 'er that!  Reckon she'll want to see you even before his Lordship.  Come along, we'll escort you."

Draco tamped down on rising panic as he was led away; he sent a shot of reassurance through _Necto fiddes_ and could feel Ron somewhere off to his left being absolutely terrified, but he did not seem to be hurt.  Out of the corner of his eye, Draco saw Greyback take Snape by the arm and Apparate, but Dolohov and Rowle stayed with Draco until they reached the North Wing, his mother's favorite haunt, and paused outside of the double-doors that led to her spacious offices.

Draco pushed the door open to his mother's study and felt something in his chest flutter and tighten and finally release, leaving him weak with relief and an obscure thankfulness.  Narcissa was clad in robes of a diaphanous blue-violet, belted at the waist in silver, hair piled atop her head in the Grecian style, silver at her throat, silver at her wrist.  Her cheeks were flushed with the heat she'd allowed to creep in through the open window, and she was standing, bent over some large piles of parchment that were spread across the surface of her desk; two packing trunks, half-full, sat side-by-side at her feet.  "Mother," he said.

Narcissa's head jerked up, and she blinked once, slowly.  "Draco," she said, calmly.  "Come in, darling.  It seems it's been ages."

Draco nodded at Rowle and Dolohov behind him.  The pair smirked and elbowed each other before departing, but Dolohov had enough respect to carefully join the door to the jamb – a dramatic alteration since Draco's last visit.

Draco ducked his head and gazed up at her through lowered lashes; Narcissa nodded in consent, and Draco approached the desk.  "You seem busy," he said.

Narcissa smiled craftily.  "Indeed I am.  It is our Lord's belief that I shall best serve him as Headmistress of Hogwarts, and the bureaucracy is staggering.  I must square everything away before I leave tonight."

Draco's eyes flew up to meet hers.  The last time they had spoken, she had made a point of saying that it was foolish to pretend worship of the Dark Lord, when they were alone: _you needn't call it 'our' side…_

Which meant they were _not_ alone.

"I believe you will serve our Lord well at Hogwarts," Draco replied, warily.

Narcissa gestured to the chair opposite hers and he seated himself in the plush, midnight-blue velvet; for as much as the rest of the house was a wreck, no one had, so far, touched Narcissa's things, which gave Draco hope.

"You must have returned on hearing of the interloper in our midst," Narcissa said, dipping an ostrich feather into the midnight-blue ink that was her signature colour and signing the bottom of a magical contract.

"Of course," Draco said blankly as the contract lifted into the air, scrolled itself into a tiny tube, and popped out of existence.

"I can assure you, the doppelganger is secured in the Malfoy dungeons," she added.

A thousand connections sparked in Draco's brain.  "That… is good news, indeed.  Did he – try to pass himself off as a Malfoy?  Laughable, if it weren't also such a disgrace."

"Oh, he was very convincing... at first.  He knew everything about you, down to your favorite color and the name of your beloved childhood Elf.  But he knew nothing of your most recent comings and goings: how the Dark Lord had tested you; how you were returned to Hogwarts to spy.  I _had no choice_ but to imprison him."

"I see," Draco replied, mind whirring – but of course.  Once Malfoy proved his ignorance of Voldemort's latest plot, he _had_ to be the false one.  "Well, even the Order's intelligence can only be so up to date.  What is to be done with him?"

"Our Lord has shown interest in feeding him to Nagini as this evening's entertainment," Narcissa said plainly, filling in what looked like some sort of financial accounting; her finger slipped and smeared a zero until it was a dark splotch.  "Or _Crucio_ until death.  Only, they are quite interested in discovering his true identity, for our sake.  My Lord finds himself offended on our behalf –"

"There, Mother," Draco said quickly.  "I don't mind if you're unhappy about it – he looks just like me.  He knows well enough to behave as I do.  The imposter supposes it'll make you weak, so long as he maintains the façade."

Narcissa swallowed and nodded.

"Only one thing, Mother.  How did our Lord find us so quickly?"

"Oh, a simple matter," she replied.  "I reminded him of an ancient spell, called the Taboo.  He performed a limited aspect of the spell only yesterday.  Right now, it only works within a certain radius, but soon any fool who dares to call our Lord by his name will be called to heel."

"Brilliant," Draco said faintly.

Narcissa did not reply; indeed, she had a puzzled look on her own face, as though the numbers before her did not quite match up.  Draco could hardly blame her, but he couldn't stop himself from thinking, _if you had only believed me in the first place…_

 _Then you would be down there,_ a sensible little voice told him.  It sounded a bit like Hermione Granger's.

Suddenly, everything she and Snape had done to him when he'd first arrived at the Manor: imprisoned him, ensorcelled him, treated him as though he'd gone mad – made a terrible kind of sense.  What if he'd kept on spouting that he was from another world, that he wasn't the Draco Malfoy promised to Voldemort?  Of _course_ both Snape and his mother had done everything in their power to make certain he wasn't believed: if Snape hadn't been quite so quick on his feet, it would have been him in those dungeons – or worse.

"You seem to be entirely recovered," Narcissa said, ice-blue eyes pinning him from across the sea of formality – contracts, accountings, affidavits – that stood between them.

For a moment, he thought she had performed Legilimency.  Draco hadn't known she could, but he wouldn't put her past picking it up in self-defense.  Then he remembered her slim arm around his waist, helping him hobble back to Hogwarts.  "I am well as can be expected," Draco replied.  "Thank you."

She looked up at him from under her lashes, and Draco wondered what was behind her inquiry.  She'd learned that he wasn't her son – unless she was trying to charm him the way she had everyone else, behaving as though she cared for him seemed a foolish pretense.  She took his hand in hers, and when Draco squeezed, he felt the rasp of high-quality paper between his palm and his mother's.  "I am glad," she said.  "No matter how foolish it may be, a mother worries."

He kept the paper concealed in the cup of his palm, unsure of how, precisely, their conversation was being monitored.  When he looked down at his hand, he saw, in his mother's firmest hand:

**_He is in the dungeons. My carriage departs promptly at seven-fifteen._ **

Draco looked up and caught her eyes with his own.  "It's not foolish at all," he replied.  "I will take especial care of myself in the coming trials, if only for your sake."

She pierced him with eyes the color of Wedgwood.  "See that you do," she replied, and bent back to her letter.

The first thing Hermione noted was that the clearing was wild with honeysuckle, which filled the air with its heavy, sweet scent and draped the trees hither and yon, providing good cover for an enterprising pair of rescuers.  Hermione re-tied her hair in its knot and looked around:

 

 

1) Plantlife, check.

2) Same oak trees as before, good.

3) Path leading to Malfoy Manor.  Horrifying, but also, yes, _good_.

4) Panicking Remus Lupin.

 

 

Check.

"You don't know anyone who's got a Dark Mark, do you?" Hermione inquired.  "Only, to get in, we'll need one.  You have to hold up the Mark to the gates."

Lupin's eyes narrowed.  "We could wait until someone arrives, Stun them, and then –"

"Hold on," Hermione interrupted.  "We don't _really_ want to attract attention."  She'd also interrupted because she wasn't sure what Lupin was going to suggest they do with their Stunned prisoner, and she wasn't sure she wanted to discuss it.  "If this is the Stronghold of the Dark, you're right – people should be coming and going.  In fact…"  She paused to cast the Disillusionment Charm over both of them, and the telltale trickle-of-icewater feeling crept down the back of her neck.  " _Muffliato_ ," she added.  "There.  In any case, someone could come along at any moment," she whispered; even a good old _Muffliato_ had its limits, after all.  "We wait for the gates to swing open and we slip in, behind.  No need to Stun anybody."

"In that case, we ought to wait right by the gate," Lupin replied, and strode forward.

Hermione surged forward to grab at his arm.  "Wait!  Listen, we've already broken into Malfoy Manor the once –"

" _What?_ "

" – when we rescued Snape –"

"When you – _what_?"

" – so it's entirely possible that they've placed additional security measures around the place," Hermione finished, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.  "I expect that Snape could have left the Manor for any number of reasons apart from duplicity, there's nothing that points to… I mean – suppose they haven't discovered that we stole the Locket…"  She frowned.  "There's nothing to say they _will_ have instituted any further security measures.  But – better safe than sorry," she tacked on.

Lupin gave her a long, hard stare that said that they'd be discussing these things in greater detail in the future, but extended his wand hand to cast _Specialis Reveleo_.  "Stealth Sensoring Spell," he whispered when a wisp of blue smoke popped into existence twenty meters ahead, swirling and curling before dissipating into the air.  " _Repello Muggletum_ , of course," he added when a red shimmer flew up in a huge half-sphere before them.

Hermione nodded.  "Is that all?"

"That's all along this particular pathway," Lupin grimly replied.  "We'd best cast again at the gate."

The pair crept along until they were close, as Hermione judged it, to the Stealth Sensoring Spell.  "How do we dismantle it?"

Lupin shook his head.  "We don't.  The key to a Stealth Sensoring Spell is to behave as though you have perfectly legitimate business.  You belong where you are headed, and the occupants are expecting you."

The occupants _expecting_ Hermione was a bleaker notion than she liked, but she got the general idea.  "Can we… do that?"

Lupin raised his eyebrow in a way that straightened Hermione's shoulders and firmed her jaw.  "I can.  Can you?" he replied.

Hermione closed her eyes and pictured Draco Malfoy's face.  _This manse belongs to Draco Malfoy_ , she thought serenely.  _He lives here.  Draco Malfoy is my friend; I am going to visit him.  When I arrive…_   She searched her mind for some innocuous image.  _We shall have tea._

She was all too aware of the fact that this would have been entirely impossible to picture two weeks ago, or at least not without a lot of laughter involved.  Now, when she closed her eyes, she could easily picture Draco receiving her in some sort of Austinesque drawing room, inquiring politely after her parents and pouring her an elegant teacup full of Darjeeling.  She imagined sipping it and nibbling on tiny cucumber sandwiches.

She strode forward, eyes closed, and felt the tingle of the spell as it searched her intentions.  She thought, in as serenely unconcerned a manner as she could manage without sliding out the other side to panic, of Draco, and of tea, holding the image firmly in her mind's eye.

Hermione emerged from the other side of the spell with a gentle pop; the remnants of the magic clung to her skin just a bit, dragging behind her as she moved forward.  She thought she heard an ancient female voice whisper _Welcome_ , just at the edge of hearing.

Better safe than sorry.  She turned towards the house – now visible on the horizon – and gave a little half-curtsey.  "Thank you," she said aloud, and turned back around to beckon her companion forward.

Remus Lupin was staring at her.  For the briefest moment, she got the impression that he had thought she would fail.  That he'd _wanted_ her to.

Panic blossomed in her chest.  She hadn't fumbled things – again! – because of Remus Lupin, had she?  Ron was right, the man's behavior was different than how she recalled it from school.  But she hesitated to label it _mad_ , per se – she wasn't sure she wouldn't have screamed if she thought a murderer had Harry and Ron.

But then – a murderer had them now, didn't he? and she wasn't.  She was getting ready to _do_ something about it.

Lupin jerked his head towards her in acknowledgement, and closed his eyes.  Slowly, all of the tension drained from his shoulders, his mouth; the lines around his eyes smoothed.  Hermione caught her breath: he looked just like the man she remembered.

He opened his eyes to smile at her – that wry, gentle smile she'd always loved, and, truth be told, had a little bit of a crush on, once upon a time – and stepped through the bubble of the spell.

"Did it work?" she whispered.

"No one is spilling out of the Manor, wands raised," he replied, still hanging on to a fragile calm.  "So: yes."

Hermione let her breath out in a whoosh, and together the pair made their way to the gate.  Hermione cast the spell, this time: " _Specialis Reveleo_ ," she incanted softly.

Well, of course – the entire gate lit _black_ , black as the darkest Dark spell Hermione could imagine.  The gate itself had been charmed to admit only those who carried the Mark.

"Now… we wait," Hermione said, and sat, setting down her satchel and pulling up a side of grass.  She patted the earth beside her.  "Come have a seat, Professor.  Just because people are coming and going a lot doesn't mean it won't be hours.  There's no need to – "  She briefly tried to classify Lupin's motion.  " – pace, so," she said.

But it took Lupin a half an hour of prowling before he was content to seat himself beside Hermione.

By that time, Hermione had already cast a little circle of _Cave inimicium_ , _Protego horriblis, Protego totalum,_ and _Salvio hexia_ … just in case.  When Lupin finally joined her, she saw a little reluctant respect in his eyes.  Of course, she'd read all about those protective spells, but honestly, she wasn't sure that they worked.  It was good to have Lupin's eye on them – and nice to think that she could rely, just a little, on someone else's expertise for a change.

Over the next hour, she and Lupin both renewed their _Muffliato_ and Disillusionment Charm twice.  A little paranoid, perhaps – Hermione hadn't felt the trickle of warmth down her back that meant a natural dissolution of the latter charm – but the last thing she wanted was for it to wear off at an importune moment.

Hermione's plan, as such, wasn't looking so good once the sun set and the temperature began to drop.  She and Lupin were jumping at shadows when Lupin's fingers closed 'round her upper arm and squeezed.

Hermione squeaked quietly, then froze, head tilted: listening, listening.

It was a long while before she, too, could hear noises coming from the brush with her non-werewolf ears.  It sounded like several people _crashing_ through the brush, actually, and grumbling loudly about it all the while.

Hermione pushed herself to her feet and dusted off her robes, swinging her satchel over one shoulder.  Lupin rose beside her, and they feverishly cast their charms again.

"…wanted us to go back and look fer the wand.  Dunno why 'e listens," Hermione heard a big, hulking man say as he tumbled out from the underbrush and onto the yew-lined pathway that led to the Malfoy gates.  "Taken wi' her, I suppose."

"You'll watch your tongue, Rowle," said a second, more slender man – and more fastidious, Hermione noted as he brushed his robes free of plantlife with a disdainful, elegant air.  "Whom our Most Glorious Lord decides to entrust with Hogwarts is his own business.  Unless you'd enjoy teaching the little brats?"

Rowle huffed a chuckle under his breath.  "Not for a sack of Galleons," he replied.  He held his arm up to the gate, which swung wide.  "Open sesame," he intoned.

"You'll want to watch that attitude of yours, Rowle," the slender, aristocratic man repeated, straightening his robes as he strode down the walkway to the Malfoys' rather impressive front door.  "Or Lestrange will straighten it _for_ you."  Hermione and Lupin slipped along behind them.  Hermione kept casting frantic _Muffliato_ s as they strode along, terrified that the two Death Eaters would hear their footfalls.

The pair of Death Eaters (and their unwanted guests) strode right through the door without knocking, and indeed left it standing open.  Hermione, agog at her luck, tripped and nearly windmilled into something indubitably expensive as she rushed through.  A minute later, a House Elf rushed up to close the door the Death Eaters had left ajar.

Hermione felt her cheeks heat when she saw the state of the house: food had been left on: the fireplace mantle; an end-table; in a corner, on the floor.  One of the windows had smashed open, and no one had bothered to so much as cast a _Reparo._   The furniture was so inharmonious that Hermione knew without having to ask that it had all been dragged, hither and yon, to suit the interlopers.  There were streaks of dark red here and there on the carpets that Hermione fondly hoped were summer mud.  The entire place stank: like unwashed bodies and rottenness and dark, red wine.

It was no wonder the poor house and grounds was so happy at the promise of a civilized caller.

"Sorry," Hermione whispered aloud, running her fingers along the scratched wallpaper as she passed.  "Don't worry, they'll be gone soon."

Lupin stared at her with such wariness that she immediately subsided.

Meanwhile, the thuggish Rowle and the Death Eater with the elegant manner were continuing their gossip, something about a stone, or perhaps someone named Stone.  Hermione opted to continue to follow them, for fear she and Lupin would be closed off into a room they could not escape without being seen.  Even in a magical household, doors opening and closing for no reason at all were looked on as suspicious.

Draco closed the doors behind him and peered up and down the hallway.  He didn't see anyone coming, so he pressed back against the doors and cast a quiet _Incendio_ on his mother's note.

 _All right,_ he thought.  _All right.  Take stock; one thing at a bloody time, Malfoy, it can't be all bad._

Weasley and Potter'd been led off in one direction, and Snape in another.  Snape would be off giving his report to He-Who-Draco-Had-Bloody-Well-Already-Killed.  Most likely, he'd be saying that Draco had fulfilled his purpose and captured at least two-thirds of the Trio: it was the only possible reason for Snape to have been with Draco and Weasley and Potter concurrently.  The story would have to be that Hermione either had escaped, or was dead.

Draco was going to go with 'dead'.  Even though reality could prove Snape wrong later, he wasn't expecting it to matter by that point; and a dead Granger sounded more impressive than an escaped one.

Right.

"Malfoy."

Draco started and turned; it was Rosier, at the mouth of the North wing, beckoning him forward.

"The Dark Lord will see you now."

_Marvelous._

Draco's heart began to race in his chest, and his hands began to tremble.  He reached for the calm he'd found the last time he'd faced Voldemort, and could not grasp it though he reached with both hands.  In his mind, he rationalized: _of course I'm terrified, I remember what happened last time I faced him -_

_Bellatrix, poised over him, laughing: "Crucio!"  
_

_...and I'm not a fool._

Unsurprisingly, this allowance did not help, so he took the opposite tack, instead.  He heard his father's voice, snapping at him to straighten up, to be a man, to be a Malfoy, but that only made him feel smaller and weaker.  He saw his mother's steady blue eyes, and felt a now-familiar upwelling of fierce pride that he was _Narcissa's_ son: Narcissa Black, who faced having the Dark Lord Voldemort and his merry men as _guests in her home_ , and yet rose every day and washed and coiffed her white-blond hair and put on her loveliest robes and, in general, did what must be done.  Draco imagined himself with that serene sort of energy, like a glacier that had weathered far worse storms.

It helped, a little.  Enough to remind himself that sweet Merlin _above_ , there was no way he was facing the Dark Lord again.  Draco knew about _Horcruxes_.  He knew that the locket (indubitably still around Bellatrix's neck) was false.  He knew that the other Malfoy was the true Draco Malfoy of this world.

 _And I know my mother knows._   The thought hit him like a bolt.

When Draco came to his senses, he was standing over the Stunned body of Rosier, in the middle of an empty hallway.  An empty hallway anyone could stride down, at any moment.

"Fuck," Draco whispered.  "Fuck!"  He added an _Obliviate_ for good measure and then stood there shaking for another few, stupid seconds.

He stashed Rosier behind a suit of armor – barely hidden in shadow, but anyone peering down the hallway _might_ not notice.

Maybe not right away.

Draco tapped the top of Rosier's head to cast the Disillusionment Charm.  He'd never been very good at it; Rosier's boots remained stubbornly brownish, and Draco could see the tip of his nose moving back and forth as he breathed.

It would have to do.

" _Tempus_ ," Draco whispered.

It was six forty-three.

_Pardon…_

Draco froze and melted against the wall when he saw a Death Eater cross the hallway in the distance.

_You have a guest._

Draco flapped a hand beside his ear in irritation.  What on earth _was_ that?

_A Miss Hermione Granger.  Would that be the Hogsmeade Grangers?_

"Hello…?" he whispered.

 _Good evening, young Master Malfoy,_ said the voice, which grew clearer and sharper as Draco focussed on it.  It sounded a _bit_ like Draco's elderly great-aunt before she had died.  _I only bring it to your attention because of your_ other _guests_ , the voice went on in prim, aristocratic disapproval.  _I assume you would like the young lady to be brought someplace quiet and out of the way.  Very improper, but in this case…_

" _Yes_ ," Draco hissed.  "The dungeons."

 _Well!_ said the voice.  _Surely things are not that bad._

"I am afraid they are," Draco whispered, beginning to move again down the hallway.  "Miss Granger and I are here to help some of our friends, who are being held downstairs."

 _Surely not the pretender,_ the voice exclaimed.

"Him as well.  And another pair of young men, who –"

 _They are all gathered together in one cell downstairs,_ the voice said.  _Do forgive me for interrupting you, but I sense a certain degree of urgency._

"Yes, madam," Draco replied, and felt a flush of pleasure from the voice.

 _Good to know there are_ some _who still possess manners in my hallowed halls,_ the voice – the Manor? – said.  _They are all together._

Draco peered out from behind the corner that ended the North Wing and led back to the rest of the Manor.  _And they haven't killed one another, yet?_

To his pleasure, it seemed the Manor could read his thoughts just as easily as he could the Manor's.  _Not_ yet _,_ she said.  _Shall I show you the quickest way down?_

_I should like, rather, to find Miss Granger first._

_The young lady is not two halls away,_ the Manor informed him.

Draco knew he'd reached her when he smelled the distinctive scent of apple blossom.

"Hermione," he whispered.  "I know you're there.  I smell your perfume."

"Blast!" came a disembodied voice several paces ahead and to Draco's left.  "And it's shampoo, I'll have you know."

"Come along, we don't have much time," Draco replied, and stretched out one hand.

Feeling Hermione's palm press into his own dissolved more tension than Draco would have thought possible.  Just knowing that someone else was with him – and being able to _feel_ that – was surprisingly consoling.

Merlin: he was turning into a Gryffindor.  Next he'd begin spouting the virtues of kindness and friendship and steadfast bravery, and also: wearing red-and-gold.

Which was terrible for his complexion.

When a pair of Death Eaters walked by, Draco made sure to angle his palm down, and Hermione pressed to his side in any case, shivering despite the pleasant temperature indoors.  And then they were through the kitchens, past the Malfoys' numerous House Elves and to the door that led… down.  They slipped through it, and into the dark.

Hermione cast _Finite_ and appeared beside him, all flyaway hair and wide, dark-smudged eyes.  "Professor Lupin," she said, turning.  "…Professor Lupin?  Oh _no_."

"He was with you?"  Draco neglected to release Hermione's hand; the steps that led down to the Malfoy dungeons were ancient and crumbling, not to mention narrow and slick with moisture.  " _Lumos._ "  Also: dark.

Hermione nodded frantically.  "Right behind me, or so I thought.  Oh, he'll get himself _killed_."

"Lupin is far too sensible –"

Hermione shook her head just as emphatically as she'd bobbed it a moment before.  "Ron was right!  He's _changed_ since last we saw him, like he just doesn't _care_ , since Sirius died."  She paused soberly.  "It's like he's picking up where Sirius left off, all angry and stubborn and reckless.  And he was so furious with Professor Snape…"

"One thing at a time," Draco said, turning right and tugging Hermione in his wake.  "The step down is a bit much, here."

"…thanks," Hermione said faintly, giving a bit of a jump.  "So, this is… your house, eh?"

Draco looked around with new eyes.  Malfoy Manor was built atop a series of caverns, and magic had been used to press iron bars into the natural caves and apertures found there, smoothed by ancient, long departed water, and time.  The walls were slicker here, and rounded enough to appear untouched by human hands.  It was a place Draco had adored exploring as a child, in his own world; but the iron bars, and the distant sense that the welcome of Malfoy Manor had retreated made it feel just that much less familiar: it was as though this place was older, and less tame, indifferent to the acts of man.

"Welcome," he dryly replied.  "Now hurry."

"Hush!" Hermione exclaimed.  "Hear that?"

Draco tilted his ear to one side.  _Company?_

The voice of the Manor sounded faint to Draco's ears.  _I cannot hear so well what goes on beneath me; I do apologize for my mistake,_ the Manor said with a creaking sigh.  _However: three of the brutes descended not a quarter-hour before.  It is perhaps they who are with your facsimile.  
_

"Wand at the ready," Draco said, and he heard Hermione remove hers from her pocket.  They crept forward for a few minutes without discovering a soul – the dungeons could bend sound so that a whisper at his ear was carried away, or a distant shout seemed to carry miles – so Draco cast _Tempus_ , only so loud as he dared: seven-oh-one.  He turned to face Hermione and clasped both of her hands in his.  "At seven-fifteen, my mother's carriage is going to depart the carriage-house for Hogwarts," Draco said.  He lifted one of her palms.  "Here is the pathway out –"

"What are you doing?" Hermione said, yanking her hand away for the first time.  "You're not –"

"There's no _time_ for this.  Let's say I'm Stunned or Cursed rather than dead or stuck here, shall we?"  He reclaimed her hand.  "Here's the way out."  He drew his finger straight across her open palm and then turned it at a ninety-degree angle.  "From here, left.  Then, right," he said, dragging his finger in that other direction.  "Then, pass _three_ branches.  Three.  On the _fourth_ , turn left again.  Do you think you can remember that?"

Hermione nodded.  "Left.  Right.  Fourth hallway left.  Of course, but –"

"Good," he replied.  "Because the Malfoy dungeons are a labyrinth.  If you make a mistake, it will rearrange itself into Merlin-knows what pattern."

"Oh," she squeaked.

"Come on."

By and by the voices became clearer, and eventually they could make out several voices.

"Come now, this part's easy," said a cool, slightly bored voice.  "Tell us who you truly are, and all of this will be over."

"Draco Malfoy," said a voice that aimed at the same sort of laconic world-weariness, but missed it a mile.  The voice sounded exhausted-but-brave, and something clenched unexpectedly in Draco's chest.

Hermione gaped beside him, and Draco hushed her.  Her eyes narrowed, and she re-cast her Disillusionment charm, creeping forward.

Draco considered this same tack and rejected it.  He supposed that someone catching sight of his face would be… well, startled, to say the least.  He strode forward.

"Hullo," he said.

Three men turned and gawped at him.

The fourth, leaning back against the wall to the cell, looked up at him and blinked.  The Malfoy in the cell was slenderer than the boy Draco saw when he looked in the mirror, with thick, purple half-moons under his eyes.  His clothing looked as though it had once been rich, but now it hung about him with that ragamuffin slovenliness lent to those who had lost too much weight, too quickly.

"Oh, look, Travers," Malfoy said.  "It's the _cavalry_."

Travers turned to smirk through the iron bars.  "No matter how many times Barty Crouch did it, it's always rather a kick to the head, seeing people two-by-two," he commented, examining his nails.  "I suppose your lovely mother has vetted you, has she?"

"Let me in," Draco said.  "I want to face him."

"Oooh," Travers replied, elbowing the man beside him.  "Look, Mulciber.  The boy wants to _face him_."

"Let 'im, I say," a rather heavyset man said with a shrug.  He spat before continuing; Draco wasn't sure the Manor had seen anything more disgusting and unmannerly, even in its dungeons.  "Boy's got a right to face a thief."

The third Death Eater gave a shrug and unlocked the door.

"Where are the other two?" Draco asked, slipping inside.  He waggled his fingers and Hermione slipped her hand into his.  He brought her forward like a dancing partner, and she preceded him into the cell.

 _So terribly sorry!_ the Manor exclaimed.  _I assumed, when I sensed so many people…_

"Other two?" Mulciber repeated, dimly.

"He means the boy wonders, of course," Travers said in that same, infernally collected manner.  "Who knows?  Perhaps our Lord had something _special_ planned."

Draco's vision actually sparkled a little in warning at this news.  He felt as though all the blood had drained from him at once.  "None of you know what happened to them?" he pressed.

"Not our business, I say," said Mulciber, with a nod.  "Don't go meddling, that's what I say."

"Very wise," said Draco.

Malfoy, still propped up in the corner, snorted loudly.

"Yes?" Draco inquired archly.  "You had something to add?"

"They don't even know if it's Potter and Weasley," he replied.  "Or Potter but not Weasley; or Weasley but not Potter.  On account of, when they first came in here, I punched them both full in the face.  That's why Avery had them removed."

"Their faces were so swollen that they couldn't be _identified_?" Draco blurted, suspended someplace between approbation and horror.

Malfoy shrugged.

"This little tosser's the only one who saw 'em intact," Mulciber growled.  "Snatchers're all run off or licking their wounds, thanks to Severus Snape, and the Dark Lord wants to be truly _certain_."

"Well?" Draco asked.  "Was it they, or wasn't it?"

Malfoy blinked.  "I couldn't rightly tell."

"He's not worth the _air_ 'e's breathing," Mulciber roared.

"Please, allow me," Draco replied.  "If you would leave us…"

Travers tilted his head to one side.  "He's not to be _damaged_ , Malfoy.  We need him; our Lord wishes to know his true identity, amongst other things.  I don't feel I ought to leave him alone with the wizard whose identity he has stolen."  He executed a polite bow.

"Do I appear upset?" Draco said, lightly.

"Forgive me, young Master," the third Death Eater interjected unexpectedly.  "But I've seen Lucius Malfoy smile like he was at a fine dinner party when he killed a man.  Now you'll get to ask whatever you like, but you'll let us do our jobs, thank you."

Draco inclined his head, moving Hermione to face the third, unnamed man, as though they were dancing the minuet.  "Too right," he replied, with a gracious bow, darted to the attack.  " _Stupefy!_ "

" _Stupefy!"_ Hermione shouted at his side, and Draco shot his second spell at Mulciber, who went down like a sack of bricks; it was all over in an eyeblink.

Hermione cast _Finite_ on herself, and grinned at him.  "Well, bless the element of surprise, anyhow."  She peered down at the Death Eaters and sniffed.  "Hrmph.  _Obliviate.  Obliviate.  Obliviate._ "

Ron was right: she was a bit scary sometimes, and now was one of those times.  Looking at Hermione Granger, Draco knew he'd never want to cross her… with rather the same vehemence he'd felt when she'd slapped him 'round the face, actually.

"Well," said a thin voice from the corner.

Draco looked up to find that his counterpart was staring at them, finally evincing the surprise Draco had expected from the first.

"Let's go," Draco said, and he and Hermione turned towards the door.

"No," Malfoy said.

Hermione whirled and put her hands on her hips.  "We've just saved your hide, there'll be time for questions later –"

"I demand you tell me where I am to be taken, and what is to be done with me," Malfoy interrupted – but looking at Draco rather than Hermione, as though he hadn't even heard her speak.  As though anything Hermione had to say was worthless by default.

Suddenly, Draco lost his temper.  "It's for bloody-well-certain our plans don't involve _feeding you to Nagini_ ," he snapped.  "If you're attempting a power play, now is _not_ the time.  I'll make it simple: Stunned and Mobilicorpus'd, or under your own power," he said.  Draco brought his wand to bear.

"Fine!" the other boy exclaimed, hands raised.  "Fine, I'll follow you."  And suddenly he looked very young and very troubled.  "I want your promise I will come to no harm."

Hermione rolled her eyes.  "Merlin, Malfoy, if that's what you need, I _promise_ I'll protect you."

Malfoy's eyes darted nervously from Hermione to Draco and back, but at length, he nodded.

Draco moved forward into the slick stone hallway again, re-casting _Lumos_.  He reached out with _Necto fiddes_ for Ron and found nothing.  For a moment, his mind was filled with a blank horror.

Nothing.  Nothing.  What did _nothing_ mean?

Draco cast _Tempus_ to distract himself from that.  "There isn't _time_ to find them," he muttered.

"Were you serious about looking for those two?" Malfoy said.  "I thought it was just for show.  In any case, they didn't go far.  I heard Potter shouting imprecations at Avery for quite some time.  That way," he added, jerking his head in the opposite direction to the carriage-house.

Draco took off in the direction Malfoy indicated at a swift trot.  "How far?" he demanded after they'd been walking a few minutes and had seen nothing.

Malfoy shrugged.  "You know, these stone walls do the funniest thing to echoes…"

"Wait!"  Hermione began tapping at her pockets, and eventually withdrew the locket, which swung madly on its chain like a hound dog on point.  "This – I was thinking, magical signatures – Harry had it, held it last –"

"Brilliant, Hermione!" Draco exclaimed, and she took the lead.  Soon, the three of them were running, huffing down the hallways, their treads slipping on the uneven stone ground and the persistent wetness.  _Seven-oh-seven,_ Draco thought; and _seven and ten..._

"Here – here!" Hermione panted, drawing up on a cell.  Draco flew to the bars and peered inside, where Harry and Ron were slumped against the far wall, insensate or - _i_ _nsensate_ , Draco thought firmly.

Hermione trotted inside and shook their shoulders.  " _Episkey!_ " she said, pointing at the pair of them, and some of the bruising on their faces disappeared.

Draco was close behind her; he shook Ron with both hands and cast _Ennervate_ on both he and Harry.  "Come on, Weaslet!  Up, we're going to miss our train…"

Ron's lashes fluttered, and he stirred.  "Malfoy?"

Draco shook his head.  "No; it's me," and a smile blossomed on Ron's face.

"Oh, good.  The other one's got a sound beating coming to him."

Draco hauled Ron to his feet, and everyone turned to stare at Malfoy, still standing in the doorway.

"Touching," he drawled.  "But as you said…"

Draco cast _Tempus_ , then turned to the Trio.  "Okay, we may have to run –"

"Room for one more?"

Draco looked up to see that another figure was standing beside Malfoy just beyond the bars; Draco moved until he could see his face: a much-beloved, and very much missed face.

"Hi, Draco," said Ronald Weasley, warmly.  He rounded on Malfoy.  " _You_ I am not letting out of my sight again!  Now do as the man says, and run."

They ran.

* * *

A/N: Another vast sigh of relief on my part as the latest of our action-bits is past! (Along with our longest chapter so far...) Action always makes me tense: then, I guess that's its job. ;)

This chapter had three incarnations; what you see now is a melding of the second (Hermione's POV) and third (Draco's).

I'm so happy Ronald is back!  :D  You'll get your reunion scene, now, Bundibird!  <3

ALSO I LEARNED CSS FOR YOU GUYS AND MADE MY FIRST SKIN!  If you want to be able to view Narcissa's handwriting the way I intend it - and other people's, in the future - download the free fonts 'Windsong', 'Severus', and 'Blackadder ITC'.  You will still see 'handwriting' pretty much no matter what, but this will ensure that the sizes of the fonts will make sense readability-wise, and that the personalities of the authors will shine through their handwriting.  :)  Sorry to give you 'homework', I know!  But I think it might be worth it a few chapters down the road. 

REVIEW, people! I am serious, when reviews pop up my inbox I close my email and I write the things. Feedback = motivation. :D

-K


	13. Charm

Draco could scarcely stop staring at Ron - his own Ronald - for the space of a moment, so it made sense that he was the first one to realize he wanted them to hold hands in a row, even though they weren't saying a word as they crept down the hallway, and to deduce why.

To cast one Disillusionment Charm on such a large group of people was begging for that charm to warp, go thin in places, pop like a disturbed soap bubble.  But _several_ Disillusionment Charms – from several wands – stood a better chance of remaining intact.

Ronald clasped hands with him, and then reached out for the other Malfoy, casting the Charm over the three of them.  Harry cottoned on to the idea next, and groped about until Draco reeled him in.  Potter grabbed for his own Ron, and cast the charm just as Hermione claimed his hand and cast, herself.  Something clenched in Draco's chest as one-by-one his companions vanished, and he noted that at first, their running faltered a bit – he was relieved he wasn't the only one.  But they picked it up soon enough.  Then they were all running, running like mad, and it was only a miracle of luck and coordination that no one tripped and tumbled downwards like the first of a series of dominoes.  

Draco trembled when he caught sight of a thin sliver of sunlight shining ahead: the exit that led to the carriage-house; he willed them all into a last, frantic burst of speed, then slid to a stop, feeling someone (Potter?) slam into him from behind.

However, he heard no exclamations of despair… they were still in their wretched daisy chain, Ron (Ronald!) squeezing his hand so hard Draco thought it'd leave bruises for certain…  Draco pressed the door in a few key places and it creaked open and into the bright summer air.

Narcissa Malfoy's travel carriage was packed and ready, the thestrals already in harness, the Elven chauffeur in a smart, black pillowcase already perched on the driver's seat.  Narcissa herself stood behind the carriage, ordering a few last packages into the boot; one trunk stood open.

Draco felt a tug, and their little wagon train departed towards the trunk.  Gazing down into it, he saw it held enough space to be a _room_.  He gulped once he realized it was _Mad-Eye Moody's trunk_ , or at least one virtually indistinguishable from that illustrious travel case.  One of Draco's hands emptied – he thought the hand that held Ronald's – which likely meant that the other boy was climbing down into the trunk.  He could feel from _Necto fiddes_ that this world's Ron was roughly _below_ him, which meant he was in the trunk as well.  He was just reaching the trunk himself when Severus Snape exited the Manor and moved towards the carriage house to speak with Narcissa.

Draco paused, drawing Harry ahead of him in line.

Harry's hand stayed firmly wrapped in his own.  Well; but Harry was stubborn.

"Do you have everything you require?" Snape inquired while they shamelessly listened in.

"We both know there's no telling until we've arrived," Narcissa lightly replied.  "One always forgets something."

Snape's features twisted with sympathy, and he placed his hand on her shoulder.  "I shall stay, then, in case you have… left anything important behind.  I can send it on, after you."

 _No,_ Draco thought, and _NO._   No, Snape was not staying in this madhouse, and it was clear from his language that he'd hoped to have some clear sign of the children's safety – and that if he had – _if he had –_ he might have gone along with them.  Draco tugged, and Potter went along, and Draco pressed his free hand into Snape's.  Draco thought, from the queer indentation that appeared in Snape's other hand, that Potter'd done the same.

"On the other hand," Snape said suddenly, "a woman traveling alone in these dark times..."  He shook his head and tsked under his breath.

Narcissa looked up sharply, then issued a little laugh that Draco thought might have been wild weeping in any other woman.

"I shall accompany you.  If it's all the same," Snape went on.

"We should work on… lesson plans during the journey," Narcissa babbled.  "You must acquaint me with the staff.  Of course it is to be you, I am – so, so glad it's all… worked out."

Snape's eyes widened in alarm and he led her quickly to the carriage's door, holding her arm as he boosted her to the folding step.  "Seat yourself; I'll finish out here."

Narcissa nodded and took deep, even breaths with the clear aim of composing herself while Snape moved to the trunk and Narcissa's few remaining belongings.

Then, a voice rang out across the inside of the carriage house.  "Severus."

Draco spun and Harry spun, but Draco tried to spin widdershins and Harry spun clockwise; and so Draco fell to his knees.  Because it was Remus Lupin, of course.  _Now_.

Lupin stood, wand raised at Snape, and his eyes were hard and cold.  His lips parted to issue a curse.

Remus's wand flew from his hands and off to Draco's right, and an instant later, the man collapsed.

Harry must have cast _Expelliarmus_ and maybe a Stunner right behind it.

Snape stared blankly for a bare moment, then cast a nonverbal Disillusionment and lifted his wand towards the trunk.

 _Mobilicorpus_ , Draco supposed.  Marvelous.  He climbed into the trunk and then a moment later the trunk closed behind him.

Everyone was there down below, room lit by their wands: Malfoy, both Rons, Hermione, and Harry'd been the last one down.

And an unconscious Remus Lupin, of course.

Ronald immediately moved forward and grasped Draco by both shoulders, staring at him keenly.  Draco was uncomfortable with the scrutiny, but he nonetheless gazed intently back.

The Ron before him sported longer hair: long enough that it was curling, slightly, at the back.  His eyes were warm when they looked at Draco, and his wry expression bespoke familiarity: _remember all we've been through together,_ somehow said the upward, rueful twitch of his grin.

Draco swallowed and parted his lips to say something, he didn't know what... but the next thing he knew, he was overtaken by a Weasley bearhug.

The mad thing was, he wasn't certain which of them had moved first.  It had to've been Ronald, of course; he didn't even like being touched, really.

Mostly.

When Ron'd squeezed most of the breath out of him, he drew back again.  Draco caught the shocked expressions of the others over Ron's shoulder and thought _fuck you_ , with unexpected vehemence.  He was back where he _belonged_ , with someone who actually knew him, _saw_ him, _Merlin_.  He was nearly _home_.  He couldn't care a fig for their shock, even if seeing it on his own face was a little unnerving.

"You're alive," said Ron after a moment.

"So're you," Draco replied with a grin, then growled, "…Damn it, _Ronald_ , you've got me repeating inanities at you.  You've turned me into a complete Gryffindor."  He was still grinning so hard his _face_ hurt.  He found he didn't care much about that, either.

Ronald scoffed.  " _I've_ done that, have I?  As if you running after Professor Snape across a field of Death Eaters wasn't the maddest thing I've ever seen.  And telling me to _look after Harry!_ "

"But you didn't," Draco said.

Ron sighed.  "All right, Potter?" he inquired, looking over his shoulder.

Draco peered around Ronald's form to find that the others were still… startled.  But Harry managed a nod.

"See, he's fine," Ron offered.  Then he sighed, again.  "I'm sure you know what happened.  I found Malfoy."

Draco transferred his attention to his counterpart, who was staring at the pair of them with a surprisingly blank expression.  "Hello," Draco said, for lack of anything better.  "Did you – are you both all right?"

Ron shrugged.  "More or less.  Malfoy was in a right state when I found him.  He'd fallen and hit his head, or gotten the worse end of a curse… he couldn't say for sure.  Thought I was a hallucination for the better part of the first week we knew each other.  Not that I blame him, exactly."

Malfoy was still silent, Draco noted, but the other boy's cheeks flushed a bright red.  Draco couldn't tell if he was embarrassed or angry.  Maybe a bit of both, if his frowning stare at his feet was any indication.

"The Castle's being repaired, so it's full of wizards … not to mention that the Order is practically living there.  It was a bit rough getting around, but we did all right, didn't we, Malfoy?"

"As well as was possible," Malfoy replied in an unexpectedly civil voice.

"That's why you couldn't respond to Draco," Hermione contributed, stepping forward.  "You were afraid everyone'd see your Patronus."

"Hullo, Hermione," he said, with a special grin just for her, a grin that said _clever as always_.  "Yeah, that's the sum of it.  Especially after you all pulled your disappearing act.  I reckoned it'd be best if you stayed gone, if there was no sign of you."

"The Order staying at Hogwarts would also explain why I was able to successfully firecall Professor Lupin…" Hermione added.  Her eyes trailed to the Professor, who was still out cold.

"What are we going to do about _him_?" the other Ron blurted, speaking up for the first time.

Hermione knelt by Lupin and took his wrist between her fingers.  "He seemed… all right.  He was ready to go along, before he found that you'd been taken."  She paused.  "Whose wand was broken when you were taken to the Manor?"

The native Ron sighed.  "That'd be me," he said, displaying his empty hands.

Draco sensed they'd be at it awhile, figuring out what to do next, and for once he wanted no part in it; so he caught Ronald's eye and they moved to a corner of the trunk to talk.  Draco told him most everything, though he made Bellatrix Lestrange's torture sound like it was really rather unremarkable (the word 'Cruciatus' did not come up.)  He left out the part about _Necto fiddes_ , making it sound like he had convinced Ron Weasley with his cunning alone, and didn't mention the part about Snape ripping away his magical connection to Harry at all.

The way Ronald told it, staying in first the Chamber and then the Room of Requirement was mostly boring.  He had a few odd anecdotes about the other Malfoy, but Draco got the impression there was something missing from them; if only he could discern the shape of that missing thing from what stood around it.  But he was tired and frightened, and the crisis of the hour was over, thank Merlin.

The crisis of the hour?  The crisis of the _month_ was over, now Ronald - his  _own_ \- was back.  Draco felt he could sleep for a week.  After a moment, he said as much.

"You look like you've lost a stone since I last clapped eyes on you," Ron replied.  "Are you really all right?  Only Professor Snape, and maybe Harry too, would kill me dead on sight if you weren't."

Draco took in a shaky breath and smiled a shakier smile.  "It's just that I'm glad you're all right, reckon," he said quietly, tipping his head back on the wall behind him.  "Relief.  You know."

He must've fallen asleep, because then Harry was shaking his and Ronald's shoulders and Draco saw that Hermione was climbing the ladder that led to the outside world.

Lupin was nowhere to be seen; Draco scrambled to his feet and tugged Ronald to his.  Together they climbed up into the bright summer sunshine.

When Draco peered around, the bright, vibrant green of moorland stretched in every direction.  He took a deep breath of sharp air and thought _Scotland_ , though he could not be certain.  Gorse, heather, and peat lobelia blossomed in the summer heat, but a cool breeze made the hot damp less oppressive.  Draco could see washes of pink that he thought might be patches of fumitory covering distant hills; mountains loomed on the horizon.

The entire assemblage was facing Professor Snape and Narcissa, so Draco drew forward, Ronald close behind.  Whatever was being said cut off immediately when the others realized they'd come.  Draco found himself on the receiving end of six pairs of eyes.  Seven, if you counted Lupin, who was _Incarcerus_ 'd, but upright and apparently awake.

It was Narcissa who broke the tableau.  She drew forward and offered him a genuine, if slightly baffled smile.  "Thank you," she said, reaching forward with one hand; her tentative smile grew bolder when Draco extended his own arm, allowing her to clasp his hand in her own.  "Thank you for the life of my son.  I don't know how you ended up here in my family's hour of need, but we are grateful.  And you will find that the gratitude of the Malfoys is worth the sworn oath of many others.  This I promise you."  And she bowed over his hand.

Draco wanted to recoil from sheer embarrassment, but he knew that such a thing would be beyond forgiveness.  "I look at you and I see my own mother," he said, rather stiffly.  "I could have done nothing else."

"Nevertheless," she murmured.  "And I must additionally beg your pardon, to assume you had been ensorcelled or betrayed by your people."

Draco was blushing by now, and desperately wanted to reclaim his hand.  "It was an easy thing to assume.  I believe I would have assumed so, in your place."  His eyes flickered up to Snape, but the other man was staring in Lupin's direction, wand trained on the other man.  "I hope you will aid me in returning to my own world."  _Now that you believe me_ was the unspoken addition; however, reminding a lady of past failures, especially when they were quite evident to her, was crass.  Draco's own mother had raised him better.

Narcissa's attention flickered towards her true son, then focussed once more on Draco.  "Of course," she said, smoothly, then moved to stand before Ronald.  "I hear from my son that you have saved his life twice since the Battle of Hogwarts," she said.

Ronald darted a glance over to Draco, who nodded encouragingly.

"Yes, Mrs Malfoy," he replied.

"Though," she added, "I imagine he cursed you much of the way."

Both Ronald and Malfoy pinked.  "We managed," Ronald replied, simply.

"The Weasleys have the eternal gratitude of the Malfoys," Narcissa said.  "Once, our families were friends, and I hope they shall be again."

"Mίn dómweorðunge sy þín dómweorðunge," someone off behind Draco said, and everyone turned to stare.  Ron, who had uttered the tongue-twisting phrase, turned bright red.

"I didn't suppose any of the Weasleys recalled the wording of that old oath," Narcissa said, shaking her head.  Her expression held something that Draco immediately distrusted, though he could not have said how the planes of her face had changed.

Ron swallowed, and darted a nervous look Draco's way.  "I reckon I remember it because of _Necto fiddes_ ," he replied.

" _Necto fiddes_?" Snape said, turning from Lupin.  "What is this about _Necto fiddes_?"

"The spell I used to bind Draco to me," Ron replied.

The entire group seemed to explode at once.  " _You what?_ " Snape and Ronald said in unison, then turned to stare at one another, Snape shocked, Ronald _furious_.  Narcissa looked for a brief moment as though she'd been beamed across the back of the head, before she schooled herself to careful blankness.  Hermione was rattling questions off at a rapid-fire speed: _Necto fiddes?  But it's only a binding spell…  Is it dangerous?_   And Malfoy was staring at Draco in disgust.

"Are you _mad_?" he shouted.  "Do you have any idea what you've _done_?  You've put the entire Malfoy family at the Weasleys' beck-and-call!"

Ron Weasley looked pale but determined.  "That was back before I knew you," he said to Draco, "when I was sure you were still trying to fool me, somehow."

Draco felt hot-and-cold prickles all over.  "Mother?" he said, the word slipping out even though he'd meant to call her _Narcissa_ now that she understood who he was.

" _Necto fiddes_ is a faith binding, if one of the more benign," Narcissa explained.  "I am afraid he is correct, however.  We now owe allegiance to the Weasleys."  Her mouth twisted, as though she tasted the bitterness of the words.

"Allegience to a _Weasley_ ," Malfoy spat, and stalked off.

Narcissa and Snape looked after him but made no move.  Perhaps they judged him better than Draco did; Malfoy slumped to his knees once he was a small figure on the horizon, and sat, head in hands.

But meanwhile, the conversation had gone on without him.

"…any Weasley," Narcissa was saying.  "The youngest Weasley child could order myself or my husband."

This roused Draco.  " _Necto fiddes_ can't compel anyone," he protested.  "Weasley – Ron – he didn't try to give me orders.  The spell only shows him if I'm being untruthful, or giving a lie of omission…"

Narcissa shook her head.  " _Necto fiddes_ is not the Imperius Curse," she said.  "It is an honor-pledge, like a Wizard's Debt."  She paused, and looked to Snape.

Professor Snape's lips were the thinnest and sternest Draco had ever seen them.  "In ancient days," he said, " _Necto fiddes_ was used as a geas on those witches or wizards who pledged fealty to some greater lord, but whose allegiance was in doubt.  Its workings are subtle, but profound.  Unless the curse is broken, you will be unable to plot against Mister Weasley or his bretheren in any way."

Draco rolled his eyes.  "I never _intended_ to plot against the Weasleys!"

"Or their allies," Snape went on, coldly, implacably.  "And the reverse... it applies, as well."

Draco paused to consider this, but still shook his head.  "Not Potter, or Granger, or anybody Weasley holds dear."  He turned to stare at the redhead.  "Unless you'd like to seat yourself and make a list of all your friends… perhaps there's someone in your grammar school I've never liked..."

Narcissa shook her head.  "My dear: a vassal is required to _take up arms_ in the name of his liege lord."

The breath froze in Draco's lungs as understanding seeped through his skin.  He turned to his own Ronald, who was staring at him, the glaze of horror in his eyes.

"We're both in this until the end, mate," Ronald said, slowly.  "Until he's dead, because I'll die before I come back without you."

Draco wanted to say _me, too_ , or _thank you_ , but both were far too small.  He remembered this choice himself, the _death-and-Harry_ choice, and he knew how big it was.  Maybe He-Who-Ought-to-Be-Ashamed wasn't standing right before them in this instance, but he had the feeling his Ronald would make the same choice, regardless.

So Draco swallowed a big lump that felt like his pride and bowed at the waist; but towards his own, familiar Ronald rather than the other.  "It's an honor to serve the honorable," he said smoothly, rising.  Feeling eyes on him, he turned to find that Potter and Snape were staring so hard they were like as not to set him on fire with their gaze.

Ronald drew him into another fierce hug, though, in front of everyone.  Draco let him for a moment before pushing him off.

"I don't like this," Ronald said.  He turned.  "And I'm pretty sure I don't like any of _you_ ," he tacked on, eyes blazing.  "Malfoy's the most honest out of the whole bunch," he said, jerking his head towards the lone figure in the distance, "and 'scuse me, Mrs Malfoy, Professor, but when that's a Slytherin you know something's gone cockeyed."

Narcissa inclined her head, as if to say, _none taken._   Snape merely stared with interest.

"Well – what next?" Ronald blurted angrily.  "Now we're in your bloody war, you'd best fill me in."

Well.  They'd made a muck of it, Draco thought as he headed through the gorse and after his... brother.  So to speak.

Hermione wasn't speaking to Ron, unless you counted the spectacular shouting match that had taken place just after she fully realized what it was he'd done to the Malfoys: _I founded S.P.E.W., Ronald, what did you think I'd say?_   Draco's own Ron was so angry he looked fit to spit, and Harry'd had to hold him back from scrapping with his counterpart.  Narcissa was attempting to referee with an icy gaze and ladylike manner as her only weapons, but it was clear Snape had already given up.

And, of course, Remus Lupin was still hog-tied, though he was rolling his eyes rather a lot.

Draco tried to imagine how it could've turned out worse without some of them having died off at the Manor, and failed.  "Hullo," he said when he reached the small, hunched figure, clasping its arms around its legs.

Malfoy looked up, and Draco saw his own misery reflected back at him.  "Shut it," was his response.  "I'm not speaking to you."

"Much as I'd enjoy a good wallow, we haven't the time for one," Draco replied.  "The others are all bickering as well.  I should hope the two of us, at least, could get along."

Malfoy's eyes sparked with faint interest.  "Then we've got the time for a good wallow, if they're distracted.  Come and sit by me."  He smiled in an engaging, sweet way, and patted the grass beside him.

Draco blinked.  He'd never had his own charm directed towards him before.  It was odd, but compelling enough that he found himself seated.  "How's – your head?" he began, with little else to go on.

"The lump was the size of a pidgeon's egg," Malfoy confided, "but it's much better, now.  Here."  He reached out for Draco's hand and pressed it to the back of his own head.  "Mostly better; see?"

Draco looked down at the features which were very close, now, to his own.  He _knew_ that wide-eyed façade; he'd employed it himself on numerous occasions.  "What are you doing, exactly?" he said, one eyebrow raising of its own volition.

Malfoy's small smile slipped off his face.  "An entirely Gryffindor question," he sniffed.

"Now isn't the time for intrigue," Draco sighed.

"Equally Gryffindor.  Now above all other times is the time for intrigue, and for Slytherin good sense," said Malfoy.

Draco licked his lips nervously.  "Slytherin good sense would have you knocking me across the back of the head and disappearing, leaving me to stand trial for your crimes," he offered.

Malfoy stared at him for a good half-minute before throwing his head back in a laugh.  "You're not entirely a lost cause after all, are you?" he said.  "I'm glad.  I'd begun to think someone really had cast the Imperius Curse on you."

"Potter did, once," Draco said, "but not for long."

Malfoy couldn't seem to discern whether his counterpart was joking or not; he stared suspiciously at Draco for a moment before shrugging.  "As you like," he said, finally.  "I was trying to charm you.  Obviously."

Now Draco threw his head back and laughed.  "Yeah.  Yes, _obviously_.  Far too obviously!  Didn't you suppose I'd see through you?"

"Even when people see through me, they're still flattered that someone's gone to the effort," Malfoy replied, as though this were obvious.

It was, really.

"The better question is _why_ ," Draco said.

"I owe you a life-debt," Malfoy replied.  "I want to repay it as quickly as I can, and to do that I need to know what you want."

Draco stared.  "Don't be ridiculous.  You owe _yourself_ a life-debt?  That's mad.  I hereby absolve you.  _Et spiritus sancti_ ," he tacked on, and reached for his counterpart's hand.

"What are you –?" Malfoy began, but Draco spoke over him:

" _In waking or sleeping, in silence or speech; in pain and in pleasure and hope out of reach; in defeat and in triumph, in peace and in strife; I return to you that which I gave you: your life._ "

The connection between Draco's and Malfoy's hands fizzled and popped, then died, like a dud firecracker.

"See?" Draco said cheerfully, when the spell failed.  "We're essentially the same person, and you _can't_ owe yourself a Wizard's Debt."

Malfoy was staring.  Slowly, he raised one hand to sweep a lock of hair behind his ear, then shook his head.  "I see it now," he said, slowly, and Draco knew he did not mean the Debt; Malfoy's throat bobbed when he swallowed.  "Very well.  The Wizard's Debt wasn't the only reason I was trying to charm you.  I always find it in my best interests to make myself agreeable to those in power."

Draco wanted to laugh, but found he was too gobsmacked to make a sound.  He couldn't imagine how his counterpart, who seemed so clever, could have gotten things so turned around... unless it was because of his own ego.  It might have been comforting to think that, even if he had messed things up terribly in his own world, a world existed where Draco Malfoy had escaped Voldemort and been, however briefly, the hero.

"You _are_ surprised," Malfoy went on, nodding in a self-congratulatory manner.  "I thought you would be.  If you're half so scared as I am, you probably haven't had a moment to think about who's been making every decision since you arrived here."

"Snape," Draco said, immediately.  "I mean, I can see it's not Potter, but – that means it's Snape."

Malfoy shook his head.  "Perfectly ludicrous," he scoffed.  "Oh, little love is lost between us; no need to look so shocked.  He's been broken, if he was ever whole in the first place.  Now that his true master is dead and his false master isn't in sight, he'd be lost without somebody to follow... and he's chosen _Potter_ of all people!  Brilliant, that.  The irony is... I mean, really," he went on.  "Extraordinary.  And who does Potter look to?"

"Granger and Weasley," Draco said, irritably.  "And back to Snape, as well."

"He looks to you," Malfoy countered.  "He was looking at you for that entire conversation, waiting to see what you'd say, what you'd do.  Harry Potter silent, I never thought I'd see the day.  I'm sure Snape thought he'd never see the day!  My own mother was looking to you," he added with a downward twist to his mouth.

"Well then, I can't imagine _why_ ," Draco returned.  "I've been nothing but a liability since I arrived.  The only reason I'm alive is because of Snape and M – Narcissa."

Malfoy rolled his eyes; Draco resolved to never do such a thing again, as it made him look both rude and immature.  "I listened to the others while you slept.  You're the one who pushed Potter to make the Horcrux detector; you and Snape are the ones who stood up to him.  You're the one who saw the Locket and knew where and how to get it.  You're the one who convinced them to go.  For Merlin's sake, Malfoy!" he said, sounding exasperated.  "Potter was about to murder Snape in his bed when you went for the Locket and who stopped him?  You... and you somehow convinced Granger and Weasley to go along with secreting Potter away until the deed had been done!  That I should have liked to've seen.  You convinced Severus that his spying days were over and he had to come along and aid you... you're the one who insisted Lupin was important, though I can't imagine why... and here he is...

"And through it all," he went on with a huff, crossing his arms over his chest, "you sound like _Weasley_ and walk like _Potter_ , as though so long as everyone _gets along_ and _does their part_ there's no way you can't win!  I don't think anyone even _knows_ you're in charge, not consciously.  It's…"  He trailed off, starry-eyed.  " _A thing of beauty_.  Not to mention what Weasley let slip about what you've accomplished in your own world."

Draco coughed.  "Thank you?"

"I only speak the truth," he said.

Draco cocked his head to one side.  "And so you figured me out.  The best way to charm me is to be as honest as you can, is that it?"

Malfoy stared up at him.  "You inspire it, I think," he said, then ducked his head down.

Draco wasn't sure if that was artifice or not, but he was charmed anyway, which was undoubtedly the point.  He didn't know whether to laugh or tear out his hair.  "We could've done worse than the Weasleys, you know."

"It stings, though," Malfoy said.  "All those years of saying how little he has, and now I'm to _serve_ him."

"Serve his cause.  It's not entirely the same thing.  And wasn't it what you were going to do in any case?"

"But what if _Granger_ becomes a Weasley?" Malfoy sputtered.  "I could be promoting the _Society for Elvish Welfare_ someday."

That thought had not occurred to Draco.  "Er…"  He smirked.  "I guess you'd better put yourself in a position where you could influence Ron Weasley, then.  Make sure that he's got the right idea about things."

Malfoy blinked up at him.  "I suppose."  He stood, squared his shoulders.  Draco thought he looked like he was preparing for battle.

"Are you ready?" Draco said.

Malfoy nodded.  "Think so," he said, and smiled his most charming, most Slytherin smile in return.  Together, they made for the bickering group on the horizon, walking towards the setting sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll admit it: when I first wrote this, I was scared about writing a scene with NINE CHARACTERS interacting. At once! Now I'm writing the final battle scenes and the idea of writing nine characters at once seems like some kind of airy dream.
> 
> Ron's sentence is in Anglo-Saxon: it means, "my honor is your honor", but in a positive way, like "my glory is your glory". BTW, if you actually can speak/understand Anglo-Saxon, please correct me. I did my research but I am not a languages person and could easily have gotten it wrong, regardless (genitive case? ...geez). Another language note: "Like a dud firecracker". It's not an oft-recognized term here in the States, but that's the definition of a 'squib'. You learn something new every day!
> 
> I actually wrote out the entire bit with Malfoy thinking he was hallucinating Ron, long ago. Maybe that will be included as a bit of an 'extras' at the end or up on the site, if you guys are interested. It is somehow really sad and horrifying and also kind of hilarious, because Malfoy's all WHY IS IT RONALD WEASLEY, I MUST BE VERY MAD and Ron just sort of laughs at him and mops up the blood.
> 
> I really want to hear your analysis of the two Malfoys and see if they worked for you. Generally:
> 
> Canon!Draco = 'Malfoy'  
> SoS!Draco = 'Draco'  
> Canon!Ron = 'Ron'  
> SoS!Ron = 'Ronald', whenever his identity is in doubt - since he's a bit more mature than his canon counterpart, it seems to fit.
> 
> Eagerly awaiting comments to see what you think!
> 
> -K


	14. Tangled

Severus Snape searched for and eventually found a dry bit of moss-covered stone to perch on in the gloaming.  The two Draco Malfoys were off speaking to one another; Snape found himself torn between fervently wishing to be a fly on the wall for _that_ conversation and wanting to run swiftly in the other direction.  Granger was settled on a blanket of some sort speaking to Ronald Weasley: the new one, if he wasn't mistaken, the one with a slightly more determined set to his shoulders and an incongruously self-assured air.  Granger had even pulled some drinks and small snacks from her endless handbag, as though this were some sort of blasted picnic.  Evans was off on his own, though in sight, and the other Weasley was _en route_ to join him, holding the Locket up to the fading sun.

The grown-ups, it seemed, had been left to their own devices.

"What do you plan on doing with your extraneous cargo?" Narcissa inquired, offering him a conjured cup of tea.  She seemed to have regained her storied equilibrium, and now perched on the folding step just above him.

For a moment, Snape thought she was speaking of the wretched _children_ , before he remembered Remus Lupin all over again.  He turned to face the other man, whose features had gone blank in a way that even _Incarcerus_ could not explain.

"I'm not entirely certain," Snape admitted.  He eyed Lupin.  "His inclusion in this madness is far from ideal.  He and his friends have always been rather… impetuous."

Narcissa arched one eyebrow.  Sitting there in her buttoned-up travel clothes, her hair an elaborate sculpture as she leaned forward, elbows on her knees…

Severus wanted ridiculously, impossibly, to impress her.

"Severus," she said, "I'm well aware of your dislike for him, but my son feels he could be useful to you.  Well?  _Could_ you work with the man, or is it an _Obliviate_?"

Severus stared off into the distance, finding his eye falling on Granger and her impromptu picnic.  Ronald Weasley was leaning towards her as though imparting a confidence.  Both of Granger's hands were clapped over her mouth, and her cheeks were bright red; Weasley reached over and lifted a lock of Granger's hair and shook the curl, as though for emphasis.

Granger lost her composure entirely, and threw back her head to laugh.  She turned towards the adults, the expression on her face incredulous, not even realizing Severus was staring, then turned to Weasley with fresh peals of laughter.

"Good to see," Narcissa said, nodding in their direction.  "Things have been so grim of late.  My son seems very fond of the girl as well.  Do you see a future there?"

Severus choked on air.  "I thought you were aware of Miss Granger's parentage," he rasped.

Narcissa eyed him sharply.  "I am, as a matter of fact.  It would be very well for Draco to marry a Muggleborn witch, once the war is over.  She is clearly well-bred, even if she doesn't know our ways.  Pretty enough, one supposes, if she would consent to chopping off that mane of hers.  And you know," she added with a twinkle to her eye, "one must breed back to Gryffindor stock now and again, for vigor."

"It's a mad thought," Severus said.  "Abandon it at once if you value your sanity."

Narcissa's thoughtful expression did not shift.  Indeed, she tilted her head as she stared across the fen at Hermione Granger, and her eyes narrowed when Weasley handed the girl a book with a strange pair of spectacles.  "If my Draco could grow half the affection for the girl that the other has, it would be a match," she eventually replied.

"Your son is too proud," he countered, sharply, suddenly sick of the turn the conversation had taken, of _her_.  As though they could all turn this around so quickly, as though her Draco could forget everything he'd ever believed about blood purity and become someone new.  He wasn't even certain Narcissa herself could; he knew the woman well enough to know that she spun lies with alarming ease, sometimes solely in order to gauge reaction.

He knew her son had inherited the propensity or learned it, more's the pity.

Narcissa looked up, surprised, her blue eyes wide.  "Do you suppose so?"  She smiled.  "I have seen that he could be someone I am fiercely proud of, so long as I allow him to cast his lot with the other children here.  I'll see him do so, will he or nil he."  Her lips thinned.  "I have stopped planning for the Dark Lord's ascendance and I have begun planning for his defeat.  That, and what comes after.  Have you?"  She stood and walked a small distance away so that he was staring at the small of her back, stiff under her traveling robes.

Severus sighed, fingering his wand.  " _Finite incantatem_."

Lupin drew in a deep breath; Severus recalled the way that Incarceration clamped down on even the ribs, so that it was hard to breathe, and was fiercely glad.

"You haven't murdered me, or Obliviated me, so I can only assume you mean to try to convince me," Lupin began, after he had smoothed his robes with a swift sweep of both hands.

"As a matter of fact," Snape said, "I'm going to see if we can speak civilly.  If a few moments pass without shouting or hexing, we shall see."

Lupin clenched and unclenched his fists.  "You murdered Albus Dumbledore."

Severus knew he should try to mitigate the fallout, but he felt himself nod.  "I did."

"You admit it," Lupin said in a choked voice.  "You don't deny your involvement."

"I don't," Snape said.

Lupin's eye roved over Severus's face, and the man took in a deep breath through his nose.  "But you're not –"

"What am I not, exactly?" Severus pressed.

"…a murderer," Lupin said, putting his head in his hands and dragging both palms across his face.

"I have told you that I _am_."

Lupin shook his head, still staring into Severus's features.

"Just like a Gryffindor," Snape spat, losing his patience.  "If I say I am not a murderer, you accuse me.  I swear that I am, and you deny me.  Contrary creature!"

"I am a creature," Lupin said, voice rough.  "You've known that since I was fifteen."

Snape froze.  He didn't like to think about that, about the fact that he had seen a young Remus Lupin with fur and fangs and rending claws; and he didn't know what possible relevance that could have, now.

"Back then, the laws were…" Lupin issued a shaky laugh.  "…harsher… you could have done anything, Severus, anything with what you knew…"  He sighed.  "You didn't.  And...  And I can't make the same mistake, twice.  My gut told me Sirius hadn't… but I listened to everyone else… and now he's dead and there's nothing I can do."

Severus stared, horrified.  Was there something he had done to make himself a magnet for emotional Gryffindors?

But when Lupin looked up, his expression was hard.  "I _know_ you, Severus, and I know you're not a murderer.  So this time – no.  This time, I can't ignore it… part of me wants to accept the simpler story, but I can't when I know it isn't true."

"But I did kill him," Severus said stubbornly, clinging to composure with both hands in the face of this unexpected and vehement denial.  "He looked me in the eye and I killed him and he fell."

Somehow, this speech did not have the intended effect of causing Lupin to become angry or clam up or go to one of the children for a more straightforward answer.  Instead, when Severus looked up, Lupin's features held pain and horror and _understanding_ , of all things.

"Severus, please," Lupin said, in unconscious echo, leaning forward.  " _Tell me_."

And it was those words that undid him, unspooled all of his reservations and suspicions and left him troublingly pliant.  Severus clenched his hands together in his lap, and began to speak.

It was Evans's face that brought him out of his tale what seemed like ages later, but was probably a half an hour or less: sunset spilled gold and crimson light across the fens, and the children were all returning.

Evans looked like death standing by his own Ron Weasley, both their faces pale as milk.  Severus found himself vaulting to his feet and meeting them halfway.  "What is it?" he demanded.  "Are you hurt?"

Harry shook his head and wordlessly held the Locket aloft, then slowly rotated in place: north, east, south, west.  At first, Severus thought him enchanted, but he saw what had so terrified the boy soon enough:

The Locket swung towards Potter.  On the upstroke, no matter which way he turned.

"Your pockets," Severus said.  "There's something in your pockets."

Evans threw his cloak down, then turned out each and every pocket of his shirt and trousers, maintaining his uncanny silence all the while: it seemed clear to Severus he'd tried this.  He held the pendulum out, and it strained towards him.

Granger and Ronald Weasley – the foreign one, the one with messy, disordered hair – returned from their impromptu picnic laughing, but swiftly silenced at the tableau.  "What is it?" Granger whispered, much as Severus had.  "What's wrong?"

"Potter's a Horcrux," Malfoy said as he emerged from behind the carriage – three guesses as to which Malfoy, Severus thought.  "He's got a bit of the Dark Lord's soul somewhere lodged up inside him."

"That's impolitic, dear," Narcissa chided as the other Draco emerged as well, frowning in concern.

"Your pockets," Granger blurted in relief.  "You're – you're carrying something –"

"Not unless Voldemort made a Horcrux out of my pants, or bellybutton lint," Harry said.

"Clever, that," the Ron beside him put in, white-faced.  "No one'd ever know."

"He made me into a Horcrux," said Harry in a strange, far-off voice.  "When – when he killed my mum."  He sat down suddenly.  "I don't – what do I do?"  He looked up at Severus.  "Dumbledore told you everything," he said, "everything, did he tell you this?  Did he tell you I had to – what?  Be destroyed?  Do I have to be destroyed?"

Severus knelt before him and shook his head.  "He might've said… something, but I didn't imagine that – _no_ , Evans, you're not going to be _destroyed_ , no-one's going to be destroying you."

Harry looked up and the horror in his expression gave way to determination.  "I don't care," he said.  "I don't care, actually, if it gets rid of him it's a small price to pay, I'll do – I'll do whatever it takes, and I trust you, trust all of you to finish what we've started here, and I _don't care_."

Draco took him by the shoulders and shook him.  "Shall I slap you for good measure?" he demanded.  "Then again, you might like it; you seem as fond of pain and self-sacrifice as the Harry Potter I know.  _Think_ for a moment, will you?  There has to be a way around this."

Granger had already broken free of her insistence that the Horcrux was some other object and was rooting around in her handbag, presumably for research materials.  Severus felt an unexpected stab of fondness for her when she produced a number of books and proceeded to hand one to everyone present – even Malfoy, who took his with a curled lip, looking like Granger might be contagious.

One by one, the others called _Lumos_ ; one by one, lights flickered into being in a circle around their makeshift little camp, the thestrals nibbling at the bugs in the heath, Narcissa's Elf nodding to sleep in his seat; cicadas hummed in the dying summer heat, and off to the west an owl hooted plaintively.

"Killing a living Horcrux destroys it, here," Malfoy said after a moment, handing the book he was reading to his counterpart.

Draco looked up from the book and nodded.  "He's right."  A few moments later, Granger chimed in: "…confirmation," she said in a heavy voice, handing her own book to Draco and thumping the page with her finger.

Severus thought it remarkable that she did so.  That Malfoy would choose to only trust – well, himself – made sense.  The Granger girl trusting Draco's judgement before all others was… exceptional.

_Isn't this cozy?  Will there be a campfire and marshmallows next?_

Severus mastered himself enough not to startle as a dark figure appeared behind Draco, palms pressed to the top of both slender thighs, leaning over, peering at Draco's research text behind a waterfall of dark red hair.  Severus closed his eyes over the image and ignored the voice that echoed through him, singing in his blood, reverberating against his bones.

 _My boy has to die, is that it?_ Lily's spectre inquired, voice light as a cool breeze.  _After all the trouble I went to, have I only delayed things?_

"We're barking up the wrong tree," Draco said suddenly, slamming his book closed.  "If Harry has to die, we should be searching for ways to revive him.  _Die_ means to stop breathing, for the heart to stop beating – surely we can manage that for an instant's time, and pull Potter back from the brink.  That won't necessarily have anything to do with Horcruxes."

Lily reached forward and tousled the air above Draco's head with a relieved grin.  _Thank god_ , she said, looking at Severus now.  _Isn't he amazing?  Do you think we could keep him?_

"A spell is what comes to mind," Narcissa said, "but a powerful connection such as that is not lightly made, nor easily made, nor swiftly made.  Even something such as _Necto fiddes_ allows only the most peripheral awareness of those who are bound."

Draco stood, suddenly, and made his way to where Severus, Narcissa and Lupin were clustered, handing his book to Granger on his way.  "Professor," he greeted Snape in a low voice, then smiled a strangely warm smile that included Lupin as well.  "Potter needs someone here to hang onto, someone who can pull him back from… wherever.  I'm uniquely qualified."

"You don't have that connection with this Harry," said Severus, shaking his head.  "Nor do you with your own Harry – not anymore."

"No, listen," Draco said, shushing him with a wave of one hand.  "I think if you removed those connections, you can rebuild them – with this Harry, I mean, on the other end."

"I'm sorry, I must confess to being rather lost," Lupin interrupted mildly.

"Harry cast the Imperius Curse on me," Draco said, quickly, "only for a moment, but our minds are similar enough to have made a sort of permanent connection.  I think I can recreate that connection, with Professor Snape's help."

"It would be like repairing a torn weaving," Severus said, but the idea was beginning to take hold.  "The work would be tricky.  It might take some time."

"The _Imperius_ Curse?" Lupin echoed, still a beat behind.  "Harry?"

Draco's lips thinned.  "Mad, I know, but he was using _Obscura_ at the time…"

Severus stared.  "Potter… and Occlumency… do not mix."

"Look," Draco said with a scowl, "we'll discuss this as civilized folk do, with a steaming cuppa and some lovely biscuits when we all can find the time.  For now, it suffices to say that when Potter and I were connected, I could find him anywhere, I could stop him from performing _Obscura_ , I could tell when he was angry or upset, I _had his dreams_.  I think it'll do.  Provided you're up to the challenge of restoring the connection," he added with a nod Snape's way.

Severus was nodding thoughtfully, but at the same time the blasted werewolf was shaking his head.  "You formed this connection from the Imperius Curse?" he pressed.  "Mister Malfoy –"

" – you've given us all the warnings already," Draco wearily cut in.  "Considering it's Harry's life, I believe I'll take the bloody risk."

Narcissa nodded.  "Rebuilding the remains of an older connection might be just the thing," she said.

Severus watched with Lily as Draco went off to explain his idea to the children.  He appeared to be couching much of his argument to Harry, but he supposed that made sense: it was Harry, after all, with whom he was proposing to engage in a rather intimate connection.  After a moment, he could see Evans nodding, and the nodding looked eager, grateful, not reluctant or frightened as Severus realized he had been subconsciously expecting.

Draco returned with a twitched grin.  "N-n-no time like the present," he stammered.

"But your medication first, I think," Narcissa Malfoy said, and handed him a slim bottle.

The blond boy blushed.  "Thanks," he replied, and downed its contents.  "Well?" he said to Severus.

Severus required absolute concentration, and so had walked off to seek higher ground with Draco and Evans, taking Hermione's blanket with them.  Below, he could see the wandlight-glow of the childrens' _Lumos_ _es_ , like oversized fireflies clustered around the Malfoys' travel carriage, could see the lamplight of the carriage itself.  Lupin had insisted on traveling with them and promised not to be distracting, had only laughed when Severus informed him that his very presence was distracting.

Lily trailed them, her bare feet squelching in the wet, but leaving no prints that Severus could see.  She clutched her skirts in both pale hands, holding them above the standing water, as though that made any sort of sense.  _Remus_ , she said as she trailed them, _Remus Lupin, Severus, how did you manage it?_ A pause.  _Was it one of the others?  Did they bring him?  Of course they did.  But still he follows you up this hill.  Is it to help you or to watch you, I wonder?_

"Both," Severus said, and Lupin, who was closest, raised his eyebrows.  "Nothing," Severus replied to the unspoken question, shaking his head.  "Thinking aloud."

Lupin said nothing, turning his attention back to the two boys ahead, Evans's hair gone dark as midnight in the dimness, Draco's cap of white-blond hair shining like the moon.  Their heads were bent together as they walked, and Draco's hands sketched explanatory designs in the air before him, _perhaps he's telling him what to expect,_ and Severus had abruptly lost track of whether that was his own thought or Lily's voice; when he turned, she was gone.

"What is it?" Lupin said, leaning forward as they climbed.

"What is what?"

"You're watching something.  Is there something there?"

Severus cast a wary glance Lupin's way, but the werewolf was still focussed on picking his way forward, and paid Severus no mind.  "No, nothing; I am only thinking," he replied, a little quickly.

"You were following something with your eyes before, as well," Lupin said, and Severus's head jerked up.  He had been seeing Lily since he'd woken, and no-one had noticed.  But he should have known: besides the fact that the werewolf likely had keener eyes than any of the others, he was more suspicious of Severus, and therefore more inclined to watch him.  Atop that, the children were less likely to see a professor, any professor, as a human being with the potential for human foibles.  To Remus Lupin, he was just another man, a man he'd known when they were boys together at Hogwarts, not a loathed, fearsome professor with power over his detentions and Hogsmeade weekends.

"If there is a danger, I must know," Lupin said, after he had judged that Severus would not respond.

"It is no danger," Snape said, _unless it's for my sanity._   "When my eyes wander, I am... intent on a problem."

"Is it Dumbledore?" Lupin said softly.

Severus's attention jerked to the other man so rapidly he almost took a header into the dirt.  "I – no, why would you -?"

"Because," Lupin said, gravely, "when… James and Lily died, I… dreamed about them.  Sometimes those dreams carried over to when I opened my eyes."

Severus said nothing for a long moment, processing this.  He had not imagined that he and the werewolf had anything in common, much less the very same flavour of insanity.  The thought was somehow comforting.  "I – hope, then, you will…"  He wasn't certain how to go about suggesting it, really, because it presupposed that Lupin would stay, that Lupin would help them, "…if you notice anything, any changes…"

Lupin shot him an odd look.

"In me, I mean," Severus went on, feeling terribly wrong-footed.  "In me.  You should not fear to – say something.  To tell me if I grow… unreasonable."

"To tell you," Lupin repeated, "if you _grow unreasonable_."

"I do not find this humourous," Snape said, and why should he have supposed the ex-Marauder might understand?  He felt unforgivably foolish for even suggesting that Remus Lupin _look out for him_.  It'd been a mad thought, as mad as Draco Malfoy marrying Hermione Granger when they came of age.

"No, no, it's not, I didn't mean…" Lupin trailed off, and sighed, swearing quietly under his breath.  "Look, I really – I hope you'll do the same for me.  Tell me, I mean, if…"  He raked a hand through his hair and began again.  "I'm not exactly stable, lately, myself."

Severus's gaze flickered over to him.  "I hadn't noticed."

"It creeps up on me," Lupin replied.  "I'm my usual self, and then – temper.  I can't stop it, I scream, I do – very foolish things.  It seems perfectly normal at the time, I can't even feel myself growing out of control, it feels… righteous, even.  It is only afterwards when I realize I've been a fool or worse."  He looked up ahead.  "Harry and Malfoy –"

"Draco," Severus corrected.  "Drive yourself mad, otherwise.  Madder."

"It appears they've found a spot."

Up ahead was a spate of flat land; Evans was shaking Hermione's blanket out over the wet ground and gesturing to Draco, who sat down beside him.

"I was only a professor for one year," Lupin said, meditatively, "but don't you feel as though you're chaperoning some sort of ludicrous field trip?"

"Marshmallows and campfire songs," Severus muttered, but Lupin heard him, and laughed.

The boys were settled when they finally reached the crest of the hill.  Severus turned to find that they had risen higher than he would have thought; the hill's slope had been gradual, easy going.  But now that they had reached the summit, he could see that it swept below them quite a ways.  The carriage, now, was six points of clustered light in the distance below.

Severus seated himself across from Draco, who nudged Harry.  The dark-haired boy offered up his hand, and Draco took it, bumping the other boy's shoulder against his own: "Easy, it's going to be okay."

Evans blushed at having to be reassured, but eventually he nodded.  "Let's get on with it, then," he replied.

Severus saw Lupin turn in the opposite direction and realized that the other man had come along to keep watch while they were all vulnerable.

Maybe this was going to be all right, Severus thought in surprise, ducking his head and turning his focus to Draco's mind.

 _Sweet Merlin_ , Severus gasped once he was deep enough to gaze around.

It was an unmitigated _disaster_ here.

Stray connections to Evans were still present, and swung back-and-forth like charmed snakes, or seaweed moving in invisible currents.  Their torn, ragged edges and free-floating, associationless impressions made him wince.

 _You're lucky_ , said the familiar, chiding voice, _that he didn't go irrevocably mad, Severus.  Fix your mess._

But Severus was already reaching out, _god_ , what had he _done_ in here, and bringing two severed edges together, pulsing his own energy into soldering the connection; far away, someone gasped, bright and alive, and Severus pressed on.

It was damningly fiddlesome work, every bit so much as he had feared, and more.  A tug in just the wrong spot often unraveled all of Severus's latest efforts and forced him to begin his repairs anew.  And when he reached out to twist Draco's mind into Harry's, like adding a new thread to the weave, Evans gasped and fought him.

"Easy, no, it's all right," Draco said, voice taut with strain.  "Bear with it a moment, it's going to be all right.  It's only strange, it doesn't hurt, I promise."

Severus could feel Harry's mind opening, slowly, subtly, in response to the encouragement; but then it remained quiescent, and Severus knew he would have to shatter the boy's natural defenses to pull past.

"Harry," Draco said.  "I know how important it is for you to – be on even footing with everyone.  I don't _understand_ , but I know," he went on, voice pitched low.  "I'm not going to be in charge of you.  I'm not going to be able to make you do anything.  And you won't be able to order me.  This isn't _Necto fiddes._ "

Harry's mental barriers shivered.  The boy sighed, and they fell.

Severus set to work again, dragging the connections from Draco to Harry, repairing the damage as best he could.  But when he reached a tangled mess of emotion and tugged, Draco resisted.

"…you can try," Draco whispered into the night, "but that didn't happen with this Harry, so I'm not sure it'll work."

Severus drew the tangle towards Evans, who gasped and choked in surprise.

"No, I…" he stammered.  "That's not me."

The free thread whipped back towards Draco and settled amongst the more-and-more-orderly skein, hiding there like some wild animal in tall grass.  "S'okay," Draco mumbled, "keep going."

There were more and more threads he could not connect to the Harry of this world, though he had to pull them towards the other boy to find out.

"But that's…" Evans whispered.

"Mmm," Draco replied.  "She's pretty with it shorn that short, isn't she."

And later: "…how far did we...?"

"At least a thirty meters," was Draco's meditative answer.  "If Ginny hadn't…"

"…my _Cloak_ ," Evans growled, sounding very upset through a haze of exhaustion.

"I was lying!" Draco squeaked.

The cicadas chirruped, the sky darkened, and the moon climbed silently across the sky.  It was directly overhead when Severus dazedly checked and re-checked the last of his work before disconnecting his mind from Draco's, and sprawled over backwards in the grass.

"All right?" Lupin inquired, turning.

Severus nodded, but did not speak.  He felt he should sleep for a week.

"Harry?  Mister Malfoy?"

The two boys looked at one another, then looked up and nodded in somewhat eerie unison.  Draco turned to Harry and made a face.

"It might be odd for awhile," the blond boy said, tentatively.  "I mean, you're not used to –"

"S' brilliant," Harry slurred.  "I mean seriously, seriously _brilliant._ "

Severus blinked at him in surprise, and Draco hauled him to his feet.

"Merlin, if I'd known you'd take it like _this_ ," Draco huffed, but then he, too, stumbled.

"Yeah, but…" Harry frowned too.  "I mean, I didn't really…"  He looked up at Draco.  "My _Cloak!_ " he suddenly exclaimed, shoving him.  "You bloody _wanker_ , you took the last thing I had from my _father_!"

"Took it for your own good," Draco growled.  "I mean, yeah… also, it was fun.  But I took it _for your own good_."

"And Professor Snape didn't even _stop_ you!" Harry went on with another open-handed shove.  Then, he whirled on Severus.  " _You_.  You didn't.  Even.  Stop him."

"Professor Snape didn't think it was all that great, you having a ruddy Invisibility Cloak and traipsing about the school at night, unhindered; of course he didn't stop me."  Draco frowned.  "Wait."  He shook his head.  "I think I'm confused."

"Perhaps we ought to rejoin the others," Lupin offered.  " _While they can still walk_ ," he added to Severus in an undertone.

Severus privately agreed; the behaviour of the two boys was erratic at best, mad at worst.  He wanted them back with the others, where they could hopefully sleep it off before making the attempt to destroy Harry's Horcrux.

 _Nice little euphamism, that_.

Lupin and Severus pulled the boys to a more-or-less straight line and descended the hillock towards their party, waiting in the valley.

"…party was _fun_ , wasn't it?" Harry inquired, grinning.  "Yolande said… wait."  He shook his head.  "Who…?"

"Zabini?" Draco inquired.  "Cool, tall, slim, blonde, hates me…"

"But I can _picture_ her," Harry said.  "I can close my eyes and _hear her voice_."

"Professor Snape had to pull over all of my connections to Harry Potter.  Some of them aren't yours, so they didn't stick, but I guess you saw them all.  All of the important ones, anyhow."

The pair seemed to be growing a bit more logical, thank goodness.

"All that _sir_ stuff," Evans said, hesitantly.

"I liked winding him up," Draco replied, steps surer now.

Harry stopped dead in his tracks, then ran to interpose himself between Malfoy and the carriage, off in the distance.  "You," he said in the face of Draco's wide eyes.  "Oh, it was _you_ in the end.  You betrayed us."  Evans's breaths were coming fast and tears sprung to his eyes.  Lupin started forward, but Severus raised a hand, and Lupin came to a halt beside him.

"Oh," Draco said, quiet.  " _That_ end."

"But what you did - no one's done that for me before," Evans said.  "Not that I can _remember._ I mean, no one, not even Ron or Hermione –"

"They would've if they could," Draco said.  "You underestimate their loyalty to you.  A lot.  I was just there, and…"  He shrugged.  "Mostly, I was tired.  I knew what I didn't want, and that was to keep going as his servant, so I just..."

"So you sacrificed yourself instead of killing me," Harry said, then shook his head.  "Him.  _Potter_."

"Let's not talk about it anymore," Draco said in a funny voice, and pulled ahead.

Severus drew up beside Evans.  "Are you well?"

Harry issued a choked-off laugh and wiped at the corners of his eyes.  "I thought – it'd feel strange, _wrong_.  Uhm… crowded.  And instead, it's…"  He shrugged, helplessly.  "It's so _much_."

"Magical connections tend to fade in intensity over time," Lupin offered.  "In the morning it may not seem so overwhelming."

Harry nodded.  "It's already fading, all of those memories that don't belong."  He frowned at Severus, a concentrating look on his face, then transferred his attention to Lupin.  "You were there too, though.  Teaching at Hogwarts again."  He blinked.  "It's all going now, it's fading."  His lower lip trembled.  "I didn't think it'd be… but it's a _loss._   Like forgetting my mother's face."

"I'm so sorry, Harry," Remus began, but Harry cut him off with a raised hand.

"It's all right.  I haven't earned it.  It – doesn't belong to me," he said.  "I'm going to catch up to Draco, he – he's probably –"

And Harry Evans-Potter ran ahead down the hill to the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm, so you guys are the first to be able to read Secret of Slytherin and shoot straight through Geas of Gryffindor, more or less, so I'm especially interested to see if you recognize what each of the characters are referencing as Ronald tells Hermione certain things about his home world, and as 'Evans' absorbs what Draco remembers of SoS!Harry.
> 
> You know, I've been reccing fanfiction in my stories for a long time because I want people to find those underappreciated gems that languish with far fewer reviews than their awesomeness quotient implies they ought to have. But you know what I'm going to recommend today? _Fandoms_ that should be a lot more popular than they are.
> 
> Today's rec is _Life on Mars_. The plot is, and I don't think I'm exaggerating here, completely unique to television. It does not have anything to do with space, and is at least nominally a police procedural. I adjure you not to go searching for additional plot information about this series because you DO NOT want to be spoiled in regards to anything about this series, even its most basic premise. Trust me on this - the show is a lot more fun when you're surprised.
> 
> You should be aware that there is an American version. Like all American versions of British things, it's better than most American shows and far worse than the original. ;) See if you can't locate the Brit version; you won't be sorry. <3
> 
> -K


	15. White

Severus supposed he shouldn't have been surprised when he and Lupin descended the hill to an argument in progress.

"You _fools_!" Malfoy was shouting.  To Severus's surprise and horror, he dipped down to scoop up a rock and _threw it_ at his counterpart.

Draco squinted at the rock, which halted in mid-air and dropped at his feet.  "You didn't think of it, either!" he growled.  "Just how were we supposed to know –?"

"You're the one who figured it out!" Malfoy shouted.  "You're the one who knew magic would treat us as the _same person!_   I don't _want_ this, I don't _want_ Potter in my fucking _head_ …!"

Lupin gasped behind him, and Severus groaned.  "Mister Malfoy, tell me you did not realize this might…?"

"Of course not!" the two boys shouted in unison.

Severus could not help but think that Narcissa, standing behind her boy, looked oddly smug.  "Children," she said, in a calming voice.  "We have all had a terribly trying time of it," she went on, gesturing towards the encampment as though to encompass everyone's terrible time.  "Mister Potter will have an even more trying time tomorrow morning.  And as… unforeseen… as this is, I can only think it betters his chances of survival, having two wills holding him here rather than just one."

Malfoy was shaking his head, not in negation, but as though he hoped to toss something loose.  Severus could have told him that wasn't going to work.

"Yeah," Harry put in.  "In case we're all forgetting, I'm leaving, tomorrow.  And I'd really like to get some sleep.  Y'know, for the trip."

Draco sobered immediately, and even Malfoy looked oddly abashed, even if his intermittent frowns meant he was angry at feeling that way.  Malfoy stared first at Harry, then at Draco, then whirled away.  Not that there was far to go; Severus heard a _thunk_ as he leaned against the opposite side of his mother's carriage.

"You knew this would happen," Snape growled to Narcissa once Lupin was off comforting Evans and Draco was had followed his counterpart.  Severus could hear low voices coming from the other side of the carriage.

She blinked wide eyes at him.  "I suspected.  And so?  Draco will grow close to the Potter boy; he won't be able to help it, now."  Her eyes suddenly narrowed.  "In case there is any doubt," she added, "I mean to protect my family.  Draco loves me, but I fear my husband spent too many years with too free a hand in his raising.  This was my mistake; I see it now, but there is no way to undo it.  The best I can manage is to make sure Draco has a vested interest in protecting the Boy Who Lived, even in coming to care for him.  Perhaps his ideals will follow his heart.  Eventually."

Severus sighed.  "It's not as though I don't see your reasoning…"

Narcissa nodded, resolute.  "Well; good, then."

"…but if your son ever discovers you are manipulating him in this way, I fear he may take leave of his senses and of us," Severus finished.  "Surely you don't wish that."

"I did not suggest this course of action; I simply did not prevent it," Narcissa replied.  "I still do believe it is the best way to keep the Potter boy alive, and I don't deny that it also yielded a valuable opportunity for us."

Severus examined her earnest features in the light of the carriage-lantern.  "I never know whether you are lying without Legilimency," he admitted.

Narcissa seemed genuinely surprised.  "Severus, I don't believe I've ever lied to you.  I try not to make a habit of it."  She smiled, sweet.  "If you ever wonder, simply ask yourself: how do her actions benefit her son, and her son's chances of survival?  Then you shall have your answer.  Always."

Severus swallowed.  "You are… remarkable."

"Thank you," said Narcissa, and her practiced smile grew wobbly.  "I – I must get to sleep myself, I think.  I have told Him that I planned to sleep at Tioram, tonight, but He has no reason to come looking."

Severus nodded.  Tioram was a reasonable place for a well-to-do witch to stop between Wiltshire and Hogwarts, protected by a charm that made it appear an old ruin.  "Be careful, Narcissa," said Severus.

She looked up with one foot on the bottom step to the carriage.  "I am," she said.  "Always."

She disappeared within, and Severus looked for a slightly-less-damp patch on which to spread out his long limbs.  He looked up at the stars overhead, clear and sharp as a blade.  _We are killing Harry Potter tomorrow_ , he thought, but the thought refused to take hold, his mind sliding over it as though it were covered in treacle.

 _Like Albus_ , was his last, clear thought before he slipped entirely under the blanket of exhaustion.

It seemed Severus Snape was who one called when the time came for killing.

Agony woke him.

Pain lanced down Severus's arm, and the Mark glowed fire-coal red.  The Dark Lord was angry, and summoning all of his followers back to the Manor.

He sat slowly upright to find that Remus Lupin was glaring at him from across the glowing remnants of their campfire, his golden eyes reflecting the fire's embers.  For a stark moment, a jolt of fear lanced through Severus: an age-old fear, quickly suppressed, it left him shaken and even more snappish than pain alone could manage.

"Keeping watch?" he hissed, knowing the watch _dog_ was implied too subtly for the werewolf to take offense.

"I heard you wake," Lupin replied, eyes still eerie in the dark.  "He's calling?"

Severus sketched a sharp nod.  He rapped quietly on the carriage door and Narcissa stuck her head out, wide-eyed with adrenaline.  Severus blinked at her white nightclothes and couldn't help twitch a small smile.

"Out with it, Severus!" she ordered, doing up her gold hair with both hands.

He showed her his forearm.  "He calls," he whispered.

Narcissa nodded.  "The disappearance of both of my boys – He's finally noticed."  She leaned close, both arms still perched atop her head as she wound her hair up into a bun.  "Do not forget," she whispered.  "He never knew of Potter or Weasley."

Severus frowned.  "They were in the dungeons, they were imprisoned…"

"And yet their capture had not been announced," she broke in, eying him soberly.  "No one was certain who those boys were, and no one wished to report it to Him until they were sure; I suspect their presence was kept quiet, much less their escape.  No: his primary concern is whether I or you or the both of us aided in the escape of my sons."  She disappeared back into the carriage; Severus could hear the thumps of presumed bits of luggage as Narcissa tossed through them.  "I should have hoped to be here… for Mister Potter's sake…" emerged from the darkness of the carriage door.  "…but I fear I have told Him where I shall be tonight.  And there I must go, in case He comes looking."

Severus thought carefully back to his visit to Tioram in his younger days.  He believed it was surrounded by water, meaning that Narcissa would have, by necessity, left her carriage behind.  Apparition with a small bag for essentials would not be questioned.

"You suspected something of this nature," he called into the bustling carriage.

" _'She who plans for misfortune'_ ," came the reply.  A moment later, Narcissa emerged.  If Severus peered at her closely, he could tell that her hair just might be mussed underneath that overlarge hat of hers, but he supposed it would do, in the dark.  She looked sufficiently travel-worn, too, with everything just that much askew.  "So: I take my leave of you," she said, hand atop her hat.  Her voice was breathless, and her blue eyes were still wide with just-woken adrenaline.  She frowned, regretful.  "I do wish we had more time."

Severus bowed over her hand, and Lupin nodded in her direction.  "What shall I tell your son?" Severus inquired, pressing his right hand into his left forearm.  The pain was growing rather dizzying.

She nodded once, tight, sharp.  "Tell him that he is just where his mother wishes him to be," she replied.  Then, her smile turned conspiratory.  "See you at _work_ , Severus," she said, and Apparated in a whoosh of damp air.

Snape sighed and closed her carriage door.  He woke Narcissa's Elf and told him that his mistress expected him to be in the vicinity of Eilean Tioram by morning; the Elf roused himself and headed off into the night.

"Must you return?" Lupin suddenly said.

Severus turned and offered up his best glare.

"It's not a rhetorical question," Lupin said.  "I fear if you leave now, Severus, you may not return."

"If I do not come when Summoned, Narcissa will be implicated," Severus said with a sigh.  "We left together."

"What shall you say?"

"I will say that our Draco became over-curious, and the other enchanted him, and together they escaped."

"And you believe He Who Must Not Be Named will accept such a story?"

"Only one way to find out."

Lupin stared.  "You're mad," he said, slowly.

"Perhaps.  Perhaps I have long been mad," Severus replied, casting a charm to make his cloak blacker than night and withdrawing the shrunken Mask from his pocket.  "Tell Evans – no, I shall," he interrupted himself.  He pocketed the Mask again and shook the boy's shoulder.

Evans blinked up at him sleepily.  "Professor Snape?  What are you doing in Gryffindor?"

Severus quirked a smile.  "Be easy," he said.  "I only wished to inform you I was leaving.  Do not – attempt the spell to rid yourself of the Horcrux until I return."

With that, the boy was fully awake.  "What?  No – Professor, you don't have to go, it's over, that's why you came with us –"

"I will return soon," Severus said and, moved by some strange impulse, placed his hand atop Evans's head.  The boy, for his part, blinked up at him in surprise, words cut short.

Severus swallowed back fear and regret and braced himself for what was to come.  Closing his eyes so he wouldn't see the boy's face, he Apparated, letting the Mark guide him forward.

Harry waited until Lupin fell asleep again, and then waited ten minutes more.  Then he crept over to Draco – or Malfoy, Merlin knew which, in the dark – and shook him, then gestured towards the other one.  Malfoy – or Draco – jostled his counterpart, who rose, shaking his head from side to side in an effort to fully awaken.  Together, the three moved just a little ways off from the others.

The one he'd woken first was Draco – Harry was pretty certain, now.  The blond's eyes were sleepy but concerned, and the careless hand he drew through his bedhead was too casual to be the Malfoy he knew.  "What is it, Potter?" he inquired, in a not-unkind voice.

The other one – Malfoy? – said nothing at all at first, then realized what was missing from the clearing.  "My mother left?" he said in a voice so despondent that Harry was momentarily distracted from his plans.  The shocked hurt vibrating down their shared connection was near-impossible to ignore.

"She had to go," Harry said.  "She – she knew he would look for her, right?  She had to be where he expected."

"She could've taken me with her," Malfoy went on, still staring off in the place his mother's carriage had been.

"Don't be foolish," Draco snapped.  "Of course she couldn't've – you were imprisoned, if you were found with her she'd be implicated.  And before you try to say you could've pretended to be me, you tried that and that's how you got imprisoned in the first place.  Not to mention the fact that he's likely looking for _both of us_ , now.  Anyhow, he didn't wake us up to tell us that," Draco said.

Malfoy sat gazing east, in the direction of the gathering light; or maybe off in the direction of Wiltshire, and the Manor.  Then, he snorted.  "Potter's decided to do it now.  Isn't that right, Potter?"

The two boys turned identical, wide grey eyes on Harry, who shrugged.

"Yeah; now," he agreed.

Malfoy frowned.  "I'm not certain which of us it is you believe can cast the Killing Curse on you, Potter, but I assure you –"

"No!" Harry exclaimed, then sighed.  "No," he repeated in a much calmer voice.  "I figured I'd do it myself."

The lamp-like glare of two pairs of shining eyes pinned him again, this time in identical mixtures of disdain and surprise.

"You can't mean to –" Malfoy began.

Harry shrugged again.  "I won't make Snape," he said, resolute.

"You won't?  Nothing'd give him more pleasure, I'd think."

Draco _hissed,_ and a sharp, metallic tang seemed to vibrate down their shared connection, like the taste of blood or the gathering of electricity in the air before a flash of lightning.  "Shut up," he ordered.  "You don't know anything."

"It doesn't matter," Harry said.  "It doesn't matter, I can do it.  You have to _mean_ it, don't you, but I do.  I _mean_ it, I want it to happen.  I have to destroy the Horcrux, I – I'm the only one who can."

Draco and Malfoy rolled their eyes in tandem.  "God, Potter," said one, and Harry had to swing his eyes from one face to the other, unsure of who had spoken.  "Are you always like this, in every incarnation?"

Had to be Draco, then.  In their exhaustion, or maybe in the wake of the connection, they were… Harry didn't know.  Less like the evil twin and the good twin, and more two sides of one coin.

"Thanks, Potter," Malfoy growled, then paused, and pinked.  _Fuck, this needs to go away,_ he thought, desperation hanging around the words like icicles ready to shatter at the slightest touch.

"Not yet," Harry said.  "I need you both.  Malfoy… will you help?"

Malfoy grumbled something that sounded a lot like _so now he thinks to ask._ But when he looked up at Harry, his eyes were steady, and Harry believed for the first time that the other boy was really going to help him, not just in this but in general: that Malfoy was _here to help._   The thought was so unbelievable that Harry had a hard time hanging on to it.

Draco twitched a smile at him as if to say _you believed in me easily enough_ , but Harry's mind reeled away from that, too.

Because he _had_ , even after the whole Master nonsense he'd been _stupidly_ trusting; only he hadn't, even if Ron had brought Draco straight to Grimmauld Place.  He shook his head to free it of the double- and triple-images that thinking about Draco seemed to engender, now.

"I think you're going to have to mean it, is all," Harry told them, floundering about for the conversation that had been taking place _aloud_ and not the snippets that had been passing through their heads.  "I mean, really hold on.  Which might mean you have to wedge the connection a little deeper…"

Malfoy's face drained of colour.

"Whoa," Draco said, and caught him at the shoulder.

Malfoy sneered and shook him off.  "I can do it," he said, glaring at them both.  "It's only willpower, isn't it?  You don't have to be so _careful_ of me, I'm handling things perfectly well on my own."

"No one said…" Harry began, then shook his head when Malfoy turned an ice-cold glare on him.  "All right," he said, drawing his wand.  "Just… try focussing on me, will you?  See how close you can get."

Harry closed his eyes and tried to let them in, but it was almost as difficult as it had been on the hillock the night before.  Every time they drew close, he batted them away, until Malfoy came at him rough out of what felt like desperation, and Harry's barriers stayed down out of sheer surprise.

 _Hi_ , Malfoy said, sounding a little strange to Harry's mental ear, but Harry knew which one of them it was, it was impossible to be uncertain, now.  This Draco Malfoy was frightened and furious and still somehow glad to be with Harry, maybe because he'd been running for a long while and Harry couldn't deny that being this close to someone had its own way of being a comfort.  Malfoy latched onto him somehow, which felt wrongly like holding hands.

 _I could do without that_ image _, thanks._   It was Malfoy's most ascerbic tone, but Harry wasn't perturbed.  He could feel, sort of, how Malfoy kind of thought it was funny, and kind of didn't want to let on.

Then Draco was with them: cool, collected Draco, at least on the surface.  Beneath that, he was terrified for Harry, with more concern for Harry than Harry had a right to claim.

 _I'm not him_ , Harry told him.

 _Still_ , came Draco's voice.  His consciousness seemed to mesh together with his counterpart's until they were both… _supporting_ Harry.

Harry took a deep breath, then another and another again as he drew his wand from his pocket.  _Self-directed Dark Arts_ , he thought suddenly and for no reason he could place, or even recall, though he knew he was quoting someone.  He could feel Draco attempting to calm and soothe him, reminding him that he and Malfoy were there, as though he could possibly forget.

Harry summoned up every thought he could about his hatred for Voldemort, how badly he wanted him to die.  He thought of what might happen if he were to fail, forced himself to see: Hermione, features dirt-streaked, gripping iron bars; Ron, staring up at the sky, glassy-eyed, the Burrow burning to the ground, Mrs. Weasley wailing in the distance; Remus, hunted like a dumb animal… he could do this, had to.  For them.

Harry closed his eyes and pointed his trembling wand at his own heart.  " _Avada Kedavra_ ," he whispered.

And then, Harry Potter died.

_White_ , was all Harry thought, at least at first.  Then, he looked around more closely.

There was white-glowing brick and concrete all around him; there were benches that looked as though they should have been made of wood, but were shining like the sun.  And then there was a drop, a precipitous drop, really, that led down to two, close-set…rails.

"King's Cross," Harry said aloud; but then he was distracted by the sound.  There was something – some _one_ – making a terrible wailing noise.  A horror of a noise, one that raised every hair on Harry's arms.

But something, perhaps his infernal and eternal curiosity, made him approach anyhow.  He crept forward, his fingers itching for his wand, and peered under one of the glowing benches.

There lay the most hideous baby Harry had ever seen.  It looked burned, blistered, as though it should have died long ago if it were in any way natural, and its peals were desperate and gurgled, maybe on blood.  Harry reached a hand forward in horrified fascination.

" _Stop_ ," said a commanding voice behind him, and Harry's reaching hand froze.  He turned.

Severus Snape was approaching at high speed, robes snapping out behind him; in a breath he was beside Harry, crouching and peering below the bench.  "Dear _God_ ," he said in horror, and snatched the baby up.

Harry's brain seemed to freeze.  "…sir?" he inquired in a small voice; because this was the Severus Snape he remembered, the one with the commanding air and the… the _presence_ that made every eye in the room snap towards him.  "Oh my god, he _killed_ you," he realized.  All of King's Cross seemed to flicker with that realization, as though the world itself were a lightbulb burning out.

Snape looked up over the baby, whom he was bouncing in a most desperate fashion.  "First thing's first: make yourself useful, Harry, and get this baby something to quiet it."

 _Harry_ , Harry thought in a daze.  Snape had never called him that.  He'd called him Potter, and then _Evans_ , which was sort of strange and sort of… desperate, as if Snape wanted, more than anything else, to forget they'd ever known one another at Hogwarts.  As though Snape _needed_ to see Harry as someone else entirely.

Meanwhile, Harry's body seemed to be ahead of his conscious mind.  _Milk_ , he thought, and there it was.  He picked it up and it was just the right side of cool.  He handed the milk over to Snape, who popped it in the baby's mouth.

The scaly, wretched baby blinked in surprise, gave a few more half-hearted squalls, then subsided, drinking the milk as though it were half-starved as well as half-dead.  Snape bounced it around a few more times, then handed the baby off to Harry.

Harry had never seen a baby this close nor ever held one, so he was horror-struck at the idea that he might drop the thing.  But when Snape arranged his hands just so, somehow the baby fit there, like – _God_ , like it _belonged to him_ , somehow, even though that was impossible.  Snape nodded, but Harry barely saw.  He backed up to the bench and settled there as the baby suckled the last of the milk from the bottle.

Snape handed him another, and the hungry baby ate half of that, too, before its eyelashes began fluttering in heavy sleepiness and it eventually let the nipple slip from its mouth; finally, it fell into an unsteady slumber.

Harry looked up at Snape with wonder-filled eyes.  "What – I don't –" he tried, before gazing down again into the baby's face.

Was it his imagination, or did the baby's skin look just that tiny bit smoother, healthier?

"You're going to make a good father someday," Snape blurted, then blinked, as if the very observation had startled him.

Harry grinned, surprised into pleasure.  "Hey.  Thanks," he said, bouncing the baby a bit in his arms.  It _wasn't_ his imagination – the child's skin was growing rosier.  It squirmed; Harry jostled it just a bit, and it burped and settled.  "Wow."

Snape settled next to him on the bench.  "Are you all right?" he inquired after a moment.

Harry looked up in surprise.  "Huh?  Oh, right.  Dying.  Baby distracted me right away.  Didn't hurt, if that's what you mean.  But how are you here?"  He gulped.  "Are you – did you die, too?"

"Ah," Snape said with a small smile.  "Not precisely.  I'm looking for someone, actually.  I wonder if you've seen him.  About yea tall, wild hair, answers to 'Snuffles'."

Harry gawped.  "You're him.  The – the other one."

"Well-spotted," said Snape, and ruffled his hair.  "About as bright as my Harry, are you?  Or did you suppose yours had miraculously passed away from lack of your illustrious presence?  And so quickly, too!"

Harry tried to look at his own hair in amazement – a futile gesture – before gazing back down at the baby.

"Severus?"

Snape and Harry looked up to see Dumbledore approaching them from across the station.

"Oh – no.  Oh, no, _no_ ," the old wizard was saying as he approached them.  Snape shot to his feet and moved to support the ancient wizard, who slumped against him in shock.  "Severus – you're… dead?"

"It's a temporary thing," Snape assured him.  "I'm searching for some people I've lost, that's all."

"Severus!" Dumbledore exclaimed, pushing the other man away to stand on his own shaky legs.  "One does not simply enter the Realm of the Dead and go _gallivanting about_ – serious damage could be done to your soul!"

" _Sirius_ damage, that's hilarious," Snape deadpanned.  "Good to know you've got the same rot for humour, no matter what world…"

But Dumbledore ignored him.  "And Harry!  Too soon, you're here too soon…"

"You knew about me being a Horcrux," Harry said, feeling as though he were realizing it all over again.  "You _knew_ and you never _told me_ …"  The baby squawked, irritated at the rough treatment; Harry realized he was squeezing the poor babe a bit too tightly, and him all covered with boils…

Harry looked down to find that the baby looked… well, all right.  Not super, and some dead skin was still flaking off, but – well, a right healthy baby, at least in comparison to before.  It yawned a smacking baby yawn and dropped right back off to sleep.

Dumbledore stood aghast.  "Harry… Harry, what have you got there?" he inquired in a low voice.

Something in his voice made Harry's stomach drop.  "Nothing," he said, quickly, pulling the bundle towards himself.

" _Show me_ ," Dumbledore said in a commanding voice, and Harry slowly lowered his arms, just enough that Dumbledore could see.

"Harry," Dumbledore said, in a kind voice.  "Oh, I should have known.  Harry… your soul is so good, your spirit so pure… of course you'd see and you'd want to help…"

He advanced, Harry backing up until he was once more against the bench; he sat down roughly, clutching the baby to him; the baby began to cry.

"That's _Voldemort_ , Harry," Dumbledore said, sadly.  "That is the piece of his soul you excised when your spirit left the mortal plane.  You must leave it here."

"Leave it?" Harry whispered, peering down into the sleeping bundle.  "But it's a _baby_."

"I feared this," Dumbledore admitted.  "Oh, if only you hadn't come so early, Harry."

"If I hadn't come so early?" Harry squeaked, still trying to evade Dumbledore, who looked nothing so much like that spectre of Mad-Eye Moody's, screeching in the hallway at Twelve Grimmauld.  Only much scarier.

"You know, Harry," Snape interjected coldly.

Harry startled.  He'd almost forgotten the other man's presence.  He wasn't sure how he could have; Snape seemed like the _opposite_ of this pale room, sucking all the light away and letting Harry blink the tears out of his eyes.  Turning from Dumbledore to Snape was like finally being able to relax his attention after a long exam, or being allowed to go back to Gryffindor after an interrogation in the Headmaster's Office…

And wrenching his gaze from the old wizard had been surprisingly difficult.

"If you'd come later," Snape said, "then you'd have been through far worse than leaving a baby at a train station.  Perhaps you'd have been through so much that doing such a thing might seem right… necessary.  Perhaps it might not have mattered to you, at least not in the way it does now, whether you lived or died…"

"Professor!" Harry protested; at the same time,

"Severus!" Dumbledore gasped.

Snape turned to him, one eyebrow raised.  "Is this part of the boy's sacred hero training programme?" he inquired.  "Were you hoping, too, for Unforgivables?  They say that _Imperio_ hardens one to all sorts of things."  He shook his head.  "Despite how well I know your pragmatism, Headmaster, I can hardly believe this of you.  You knew, all along, that the boy was to be destroyed, yet you allowed him to think he was special to you."  Snape's eyes were cold, now, and his lips were compressed to a thin, unforgiving line.  Though his tone remained even, there was something in those eyes that made Harry acutely aware that he did not want to be the one with whom his professor was so displeased.

Harry wanted to say that surely Dumbledore hadn't meant it that way, that there had to be something else behind the way that Dumbledore had timed things besides hope that Harry would emerge harder, and resigned.

But he couldn't quite forget the horror in the Headmaster's eyes when he first clapped eyes on the baby, or that his own first instinct had been to clutch the child to himself – to protect him _from_ the Headmaster.  And he couldn't escape the feeling that Snape was _more_ here, somehow.  Truer, bigger, more _real_ , as though he'd lost all inessential parts of himself in coming here, in _being_ here; but Dumbledore seemed more or less the same, or perhaps even diminished to Harry's eye.

"It was not the way you paint it, Severus," Dumbledore said.  "I loved Harry.  I still love him."

"If that is your love, then I should hate to be hated," Severus said.  Then, he took in a deep breath and seemed to calm.  "I see that you did what you believed was right, Albus," he said, in a very weary voice.  "You always do.  But I marvel you did not allow my counsel to sway you, or Minerva's.  You are not the sole purveyor of that which is right and good, are you?  You have not come so far to believe such a thing…?"

Harry looked up and saw an expression on the Headmaster's face that was so unfamiliar that it took him longer than it ought have to place it.

It was doubt.

"What would happen, if Harry takes the child?" Severus pressed, for all his voice was low.

"I… don't know," Dumbledore said, with a shake of his head and a swaying of that venerable beard.

With the admission, King's Cross dulled.  Colour began creeping up the bricks and into the sodium lamps.  When Harry blinked again, passengers were exiting and boarding the trains.

"Would he still have the Horcrux inside of him?" Snape said.  "Is the baby itself a Horcrux, now?"

Dumbledore shook his head again, frowning in confusion.  "No; Harry's death should have destroyed the Horcrux itself…  But Severus, there's no telling the evil he could bring back with him in that child…"

"It's a _baby_ ," Harry said.  "All right, even I know that babies don't typically symbolize evil, do they?  And this is my dream.  Babies are new beginnings and hope."

"Ah," Severus Snape said, eyes dark as coal lighting on him a moment.  "There's your Slytherin side," he commented with a frankly incongruous grin of approval.  Harry didn't think he'd ever seen that expression on the Potions Master's face.

At least, not the man he knew.

Dumbledore appeared to have noticed as well.  "…Severus?"

"Albus," Snape greeted him in a very even voice.

"You are not Severus Snape," Dumbledore accused.  "Not… quite."

Severus smiled, and suddenly Harry put it all together – _oh Merlin!_ – it was _Remus Lupin's_ smile of unruffled calm on the Potions Master's face.  For one, mad moment, Harry had the wild thought that Snape had _stolen_ it from him.  It seemed Remus no longer had the use of it, after all.  "Sharp as ever, Albus," he said, with an elaborate bow.  "It's all right," he added, when the Headmaster's eyes widened in dismay.  "Harry knows who I am, I think."

Harry looked from the Headmaster to his dreaded Potions Master, whose black eyes glinted with humour, and down into the bundle in his arms.  "Yes," he said quietly.  "You're – you're Draco's professor.  And Remus Lupin's best friend, I think.  You smile just like him."  He paused, took a breath.  "You're trying to bring Sirius back from beyond the Veil.  That's who you were searching for, here."

Snape nodded.  "Well deduced, Harry," he said, "though I was hoping to be able to find the way to Draco and Ronald as well.  You can breathe easy," he added, turning towards Dumbledore.  "Your Severus Snape is alive and well… as well as a man who's done the things we have can be," he added with a frown.  "My students invented a Horcrux-detector, and of course your Harry would be the first Horcrux detected.  That's why he didn't arrive at the end of the journey, as you'd planned, but at the beginning.  Were you figuring on a welcome party?"

Dumbledore's expression twisted.

"A… welcome party?" Harry echoed anxiously.

Snape stared Dumbledore down.  It was like watching a black hole glare into the heart of a sun.

"Of course, I wanted your loved ones to walk with you," Dumbledore replied.  "That's why I sent the Resurrection Stone."

"The what?"

"In the snitch.  You see," Dumbledore said, sadly, "this is all out of order."

Harry looked up to see Snape's funny expression, and suddenly it all came together.  "Dying… would've looked downright _good_ if Mum and Dad and Sirius were waiting for me."  He paused, swallowing past the sudden lump in his throat.  "All right.  I get it."

"I just… you've been so brave," Dumbledore told him, earnest, now.  " _So brave_.  I cannot imagine how hard it is to face one's death at such a young age.  I only wanted to make things easier for you."

"Easier," Harry said, clutching the baby.  "Yeah, I see."  He bowed his head over the baby and did not look at the Headmaster.  He felt sick.  He knew it had all been for the war, he _knew_ , he even _understood_ , but he couldn't, just couldn't face the Headmaster, knowing that from almost the moment Dumbledore had clapped eyes on him at age eleven – and maybe earlier – the old man had suspected he should have to die.  Every time Dumbledore had offered him a sweet, every time he'd smiled at him, every time he'd told Harry how brave and good he was and _it's our choices that matter_ , he'd _known_ what was to become of Harry, in the end.  And how could he have possibly known that Draco would be there to save Harry, when the time came?  He'd probably figured that Harry would die, and stay that way; rather like most people who died, he supposed.

"Harry…" Dumbledore began.

"Sorry," Harry said, chancing a quick look up from under his lashes at the older wizard.  The expression on the old man's face broke his heart.  "I want to forgive you," he said, lowly, "but I can't, yet."

"I believe I understand, Harry," Dumbledore replied with a sigh.  "My portrait will be at Hogwarts; I hope you will go and speak with me, when you are ready."  He bowed.  "My boy – you are the bravest and best of us.  Godspeed," he said, and disappeared into the crowd.

"…that was… ill-done of me," Severus Snape said, at length.

Harry looked up to find Snape sitting down beside him again.  "No," he said, slowly.  "No, it wasn't."

"He really did want what was best –" Snape began.

"…for the war," Harry cut in, bitterly.

"I won't argue."

"There's a first."

The pair watched the people bustle by for awhile.  Sometimes, Harry thought he recognized them; sometimes he thought he knew their names.  The trains came and went, disgorging and admitting them.

"I can't leave the baby here," Harry said eventually, helplessly.

"Perhaps the Headmaster was right," Snape said.  "If I were evil, and could choose whatever form I could think of, a form that would lull the viewer into a false sense of security…"

"You still wouldn't pick a baby," Harry countered.  "Look, he can barely move.  And I think he just pooped himself," he added, when a foul odor arose from the baby's hindquarters.

Snape's nose crinkled at the smell, and then he laughed.

Harry smiled.  "Good to see you laugh," he said, circumstances prodding him to honesty.  "Weird, but good."

"Perhaps once you're at home, you could send up a signal.  Give me something to follow," Snape said, ignoring his comment utterly.

"You could really do that?" Harry said, tacitly agreeing to the change of subject.  "You could follow me?"  Something about this Severus Snape made Harry _want_ , with a fierce and aching desire, to believe in him.  He had the peculiar notion that if Severus Snape showed up on their home plane, everything would set itself aright or he'd know the reason why.

"…Harry?"

Harry flushed, realizing he must've been staring.  "It's just… Draco gave me all these memories, and… and so I _know_ you," he blurted.  "I know _you_ , nearly as well as the other one."  He shook his head and looked up, desperate to change the subject; his own Professor Snape would never want to look after him the way this one had, and so there was no use in dwelling on it.  "Where are all of those people going?  What if I get on the train?" he asked.

Snape looked at Harry, and his features were alarmed.  Then he paused, and thought about his answer.  Harry liked that, that he stopped and thought about his answer to Harry.

"Well."  Snape cleared his throat.  "That's the thing about trains.  Getting on is your last decision for awhile.  Then you have to trust that the conductor is taking you to be where you belong.  I suppose one could simply stay on awhile, not having to see anything but the waystations, traveling back and forth and never getting anywhere.  Or one could… go on."

"Suppose I gave the baby to one of them?" Harry whispered, although the thought tore at him vicious as shards of glass.  "Suppose I found someone who looked trustworthy and I gave him away?"

"It could be done, I believe," Snape agreed, watching him closely.

"But – oh Merlin – I can't," Harry said, peering down helplessly at the sleeping child in his arms.  "I mean, I really _can't_ , it – it feels like _mine_ ," he tacked on, with eyes pressed tightly closed.  "Like it belongs to me, like I can't…"

"Then you must take him with you," Snape said, gently.  "Come what may."

"You're giving me the Hufflepuff answer," Harry said, desperately.  "You said Slytherin before; give me the Slytherin answer."

"Very well," Snape said, curving his large hand over the baby's dark, feathery hair.  "You have something that was once part of Tom Riddle.  That may confer certain… advantages."

Harry blinked.  "Oh…"  He'd thought for sure that the Slytherin answer would be to slip the baby right back where he'd found it, but perhaps after seeing Draco's memories he should have known better.

"Harry, listen to me," Snape said, and his voice was as urgent as _'no Unforgivables'_.  "The Harry Potter of my world won because of whom he loved, and I believe that is your key to victory as well.  Your greatest gift – it has always been – is to make others feel important and loved, to show them that they are part of something bigger just through knowing you.  You must hang on to that; you must hold to it at all costs.  And if this child is a part of that - if this fragment of soul is part of who you are, who you have become, as it must be - then you must ensure his safety."

Harry swallowed, and nodded.

"I'll follow when I can," said Snape.  "I'm here for a reason.  Then, I shall follow the path you've left me."

"We could use your help," Harry said.

Snape laughed again.  "Very well, I'll bring help, then."

They talked for awhile longer, although Harry knew he couldn't have said what about.  It was spinning through his mind, over and over, that this was what it felt like to have a grown-up who was truly interested in his well-being, whom he felt he could tell anything.  He loved Ron and Hermione, but somehow this wasn't quite the same.

Eventually, though, Harry felt as though King's Cross were fading around him.  "Guess that's my cue," he said.

"Tell Draco and Ronald that I will find them and bring them home.  And tell them…"  His features twisted.  "Tell them Harry has _Obscured_ their departure.  The boy could do nothing else, but… they may not receive the welcome home they expect or deserve," he finished.

Harry nodded, clasping the baby tightly to his chest.

"Tell them that Mrs. Weasley does not yet know, nor will if I can help it," Snape added.  "Tell them they are missed, and tell Draco… this is not his _punishment_ , for Merlin's sake."

Snape now sounded as close to _emotional_ as Harry could imagine him being, so Harry scooted until he was shoulder-to-shoulder with the other man.  "I will," he said.  "I – if you see Mum, tell her I love her.  Dad, too, if he'll listen."

"I'll pass on the message, Harry," said Snape, wearing Remus's small smile.  "But I imagine they are well aware."

* * *

A/N:

Whew! Oh my goodness, do I ever need your feedback for this one!

...and in general. Remember - reviews feed the creative beast! Without them, no story would exist!  I was super-excited to see the reviews in the triple digits, even though it's a little silly of me.

This chapter is the only one where any significant details have altered since its original incarnation.  I had to tweak a few things.  :)  The chapter felt heavy and a little deeper than the rest of the story when I wrote it several moons ago, but now it's clearer to me how the events in this chapter rotates the story on its axis, dictating its future direction.   

As far as recs go, I tried to look for excellent romantic fics - fics that CENTER on romance and are awesome - but sadly, most of my romantic reading in the HP fandom preceded my use of delicious to keep track of my bookmarks, so that's a no-go. So I did an about face and decided to rec a dark fic.

I don't tend to like dark!fic as much as fiction with hopeful endings, so I have a few requirements. First: typically, they must be medium or short-length works. If it's too dark for too long it gets predictable. (How will this next scene go? Answer = wrong! In every possible way! *yawn/eye roll*) Furiosity's _**20 Random Things About Draco Malfoy**_ fits the bill for short and snappy, with a big punch. It is quite short, so saying anything else is probably giving away too much. Just go read it; you won't be disappointed.

(I will also add that if you want to read a story much like SoS, but with slash? Furiosity is your author. Find 'Before Peace' and ye shall be overjoyed.)

-K


	16. Charity

Narcissa Malfoy stood at the window, facing out over the Lake, and waited, hands clasped behind her back.

Narcissa was aware, more than even most pureblooded women, how she presented herself.  She was pretty enough, if not beautiful, but she was also small: her son, who had inherited her slender frame, was already a few centimeters taller.  Her manner was cool, but in many ways still girlish: as the youngest witch of three, she had not yet outgrown the tendency to play helpless when it suited her.  It was this equable disinterest with flashes of little-girl-lost that had netted the Dark Lord.

It all had to go.

That woman was not a Headmistress, much less of the premier Wizarding school in Britain.  Much less in such difficult, divisive times.

During the ride to Hogwarts, Narcissa desperately cast about for what sort of personage would do _well_ at the job.  Severus had the right measure of cool contempt, but his demeanor was leavened with such bitterness that she was uncertain she could manage to echo it, at least not believably.  The Dark Lord himself – she gave a shudder.  She dared not attempt the silk-covered poison that was the Dark Lord's treatment of his followers.  But Narcissa was too little, too used to being third growing up, second to her husband, and at the trailing end of a long line of Death Eaters to know what it was to be first.

Dumbledore and McGonagall flashed to mind now, and Narcissa had to muffle a half-hysterical laugh into her sleeve.  Goodness, and wasn't that a picture?  There was no chance.

A House Elf popped into being beside her.  "Headmistress," it said in a sombre voice, "the staff is assembled to greet you."

Narcissa nodded, and the Elf popped out of existence.  She turned to the portraiture in the Headmistress's office and locked gazes with each of them.  She dared not, she dared not reveal anything, not even here – who knew where else Phineas Nigellus's portrait dwelled, in how many pureblooded households?  She was on her own.

And just like that, she knew whose face to assume, whose demeanor to steal for the evening.  Who else had been alone, and done well enough that he had somehow managed to make friends of enemies and subtly shift the threads of the War to his liking and his ends?  Hmm.  Well, it wasn't as though she minded being second, not really, and certainly not in this case.

Narcissa Malfoy closed her eyes and focussed.  And when she lifted her gaze, it was her son's eyes that peered out from behind her lashes, and the set of her shoulders was her son's and her stride was her son's: determined and sorrowful and quietly powerful, all at once.

Narcissa's entrance made a bit of a stir in the Great Hall.

When she strode through the entry, hands empty at her sides, the entire, bustling Hall hushed immediately, and for a moment she felt all of eleven years old again, with Bella and Drommie towering over her and the professors waiting to Sort her to Slytherin.  Her lips set, and she readied herself to stride forward, chin high… before remembering that she was her son, who walked as though he were about to offer condolences to the bereaved.  She pushed her shoulders back and headed towards the group, making sympathetic eye contact with everyone, especially Minerva McGonagall, who – she felt a flash of pity – looked as though she might have been weeping.

"Hello," Narcissa greeted them.  "Thank you for coming."

Few of the professors so much as inclined their heads; a few dispirited mumbles sounded, but Narcissa could not tell from whom, clustered as they were together.

"Let us be seated," Narcissa said, and waved an arm forward.  She strode up to the Head Table and to Dumbledore's old chair.  She pulled the chair backward with a calm, fond air, as though she thought of the Headmaster with great kindness, but did not hesitate in seating herself at his place.

There was a terrible stretch of time, Narcissa could not say how long, where no-one moved.  Filius Flitwick danced from foot to foot as though the very thought of such rudeness as ignoring Narcissa brought him near despair, but he did not start towards her.  Hagrid's beard stood out in all directions as always, but there seemed to be a bristly nature to it, like a porcupine with quills extended.  Professor McGonagall's face was a stormcloud.  Narcissa watched as the Deputy Headmistress struggled, pulled between her obligation to do what was best for the school and the desire to give no quarter; but whether it was a minute or an hour, she eventually rose to the dais and seated herself to Narcissa's right, and the rest of the professors followed with varying degrees of visible relief.

"Thank you," she said, and she let a bit of her honest gratefulness and relief color her voice.  "First, I arranged to have a small meal –"

McGonagall broke in, her voice ringing with authority, her brogue thick with impatient contempt.  "Missus Malfoy, we at Hogwarts know why you, an outsider without any teaching or business or even management experience, have been appointed to the position of Headmistress," she said, leveling at Narcissa a glare that had cowed first- through seventh-years for decades.  "You need not perpetuate the farce that you are be best candidate the Board could summon, even in such dark times.  We all of us are adults, and we all know better.  We know who and what you are…"  The older witch paused, and Narcissa dared not speculate what the Head of House would say, next.  Already, her blood ran cold, and she wondered if the staff planned to keep her on as a pretty figurehead, and nothing more.  But then, McGonagall added, in an entirely different sort of voice: "…and we know what would happen to us… to our charges… were we to disobey you."

Narcissa's planned rebuttal crashed harmlessly against McGonagall's new turn, like a swollen river crashing against a dam.  She imagined her Draco, and his response, and allowed pain to enter her expression.  It was less a matter of manufacturing an emotion, and more letting the right emotion through.  Even though the Deputy Headmistress had no reason to trust her, it was still painful to hear one of her old professors so casually state that she expected Narcissa to torture her, or at least to order it done… not to mention the _children_.

"I am… sorry you feel that way," Narcissa said, "though I had expected it.  I doubt you see matters so clearly as you believe, but one can hardly fault you for your assumptions.  It is my hope that in the future, we can come to a better understanding."  She maintained an earnest eye contact with the older witch.

The Deputy Headmistress scoffed and all but rolled her eyes at Narcissa.  "I may be hanged for it, but I'll speak my mind," she said, "especially if it's just before a long silence.  Missus Malfoy, you may feel free to pretend with the children… it might do them good if they didn't fully understand your motivations… but I entreat you once more to show your true face to the rest of us, as a small kindness."  McGonagall folded her hands and leaned forward, expectantly.  The rest of the staff behaved as though they'd all been cursed with _Silencio_ , staring at Narcissa and mutely awaiting her response.

From the viewpoint of a Malfoy or a Black, such a plea for straightforwardness was an utterly laughable, even childlike request.  But after having seen some of her own son's behaviour, especially around the Gryffindors, Narcissa was beginning to understand that honesty had its own sort of charm… the unexpected, unlooked-for kind that crept up on one… especially on a Slytherin, who might find such behavior all the more charming for its novelty.  Honesty, Narcissa could manage, if just: "…as a former Slytherin, Deputy Headmistress, I am constitutionally incapable of your sort of kindness," she replied. "You will have settle for mine, instead."

It was clear that McGonagall wasn't entirely certain how to take this comment, which had the doubly pleasing effect of quieting the old witch and causing her to at least puzzle over Narcissa's point of view.

Narcissa replied to her silence with a smile – her son's: bashful and sweet and earnest, though Merlin knew where he'd come by it.  Not honestly: it certainly wasn't hers or Lucius's.  "You must know I mean neither you nor the children any harm," she added, tapping the table thrice with her wand; immediately, tea appeared at each professor's place at the table.  She tapped her place once more and a light broth appeared, filled with carrots and savoury herbs and small chunks of chicken – food for grief and food for illness, she found, were often the same.

Hagrid looked down at her, across the table to the other professors, and knocked at his place; a very large bowl of soup appeared, and he rather quickly tucked in.

Narcissa hid her smile, this time.

McGonagall looked down at the soup, and up at Narcissa.  "Are you attempting to mother the Hogwarts staff?" she inquired.  Her voice was entirely free of inflection, now, save perhaps a hint of incredulity.

Narcissa took the moment to scrutinize the older witch's appearance all over again.  While Minerva McGonagall could never be said to look anything less than perfectly put together, her eyes were red-rimmed and ringed with dark purple splotches, and her skin was pale and sickly-yellow.  But at least now her eyes sparked with interest.

"That depends," Narcissa said, lifting a spoonful delicately to her mouth, "on whether that would be entirely too presumptuous of me."  She swallowed the soup thoughtfully.  It traveled, warm, down her throat and rested, like a banked fire, in her stomach.  _Just right,_ she thought, and took a sip of her tea.

"And where is the niffler in all this gold?" McGonagall returned.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"What do you want from us?" Filius Flitwick broke in.

Narcissa felt as though she could sense the sudden, riveted attention of over ten very powerful witches and wizards.  "Suppose," she said, "you were to receive a new owl in the mail."

"A post?" Hagrid boomed.

Several of the other professors shot the poor man a glare simply for addressing her.  Narcissa held back a sigh; ladies did not sigh, save in _extremis_.

"No, not a post," Narcissa clarified.  "An owl, as a gift.  It is a beautiful owl.  Serviceable to the task of carrying your letters, but ever so much more.  Do you suppose you ask where it comes from?"

McGonagall's eyes narrowed.  "Of course," she said.

"Certainly.  The same way you'd test a racing broom from an anonymous donor," Narcissa lightly returned.  "You cast all the spells you can think of.  Is it cursed?  Is it tracking your movements?  Is it possessed?  After you've tried every spell you can think of, you reluctantly put it to use."

"I assume this owl does the job marvelous well," Flitwick offered.

"Suppose she does," Narcissa returned.  "And very loyal.  Later, you find out that she used to belong to an enemy of yours, a terrible man.  Does that make her any less useful?"

McGonagall sniffed, but she was reconsidering Narcissa again, a state of affairs Narcissa dared not hope for.  "A Slytherin response, from a Slytherin," McGonagall said, eventually.

Narcissa wasn't certain if her son would behave as though that shamed him, so she allowed her own natural hauteur to shine through, if only for a moment.  "I can only be what I am, Deputy Headmistress; and you may choose to believe me, or not.  As you like.  However, the question remains: would you put me to use?  Or would you cage a useful, handy creature who stands at your disposal?"

McGonagall eyed her shrewdly, an up-and-down-and- _through_ sweep that Narcissa was all too familiar with from her school years.  Narcissa did nothing but continue to look as cool, self-possessed, and yet earnest as she knew how.

"Well," McGonagall said, with an air of finality, "whether or not you shall be of any use remains to be seen.  But I suppose that we must use any tool that comes to hand," she primly conceded.

Narcissa tried not to show her surprise, or the growing smugness that trailed in its wake.  She had been found that magical combination of useful and manipulable that, when summed, equaled both _useful_ and _harmless._   She had no illusions regarding the Deputy Headmistress's trust of her motives: McGonagall believed she might be put to use, and that she could be controlled with a modicum of effort.  One out of two wasn't bad for an old, grieving Gryffindor, Narcissa thought, not uncharitably.

When McGonagall turned more fully to her soup, one tentative conversation blossomed at the end of the table, and then another, and another until the entire staff was chatting to one another, even if their voices were hushed and subdued.  Most of the conversations seemed to center around she and the Deputy Headmistress; she was quite certain she saw money change hands between the groundskeeper and Professor Flitwick.  She resolved to discover the exact nature of the bet, and place coin on herself in some roundabout fashion.

A team of House Elves was in the Headmaster's Office, moving things about, when Narcissa entered later that evening.

"What is to be done with the previous Headmaster's things?" Narcissa inquired of the air in front of her, not certain whom to address.

Immediately, one of the Elves materialized at her side.  "The Headmaster's things is being put into storage, Headmistress Malfoy," it said.

"I should like to see them, first," she replied, with one raised brow.  She frowned in thought.  "Is everything going to storage?"

"Only such things as the Headmistress has brought, herself, like her shiny new desk and her rugs and her paintings," the Elf assured her.  "The Headmaster's desk and rugs and paintings is being put into storage."

Narcissa nodded.  "Allow me to look through the desk first, please."

The House Elves nodded and moved for the door like lightning.

"And," Narcissa added grimly, "bring me the Elf called Dobby."

The lead Elf nodded sharply.  "As the Headmistress wishes," he said, and disappeared.

Narcissa seated herself at the desk within the big, squishy chair and sighed.  After a day's hard travel, it felt positively sinful against her aching back.  At the same time, she was glad she had brought at least a handful of her solid, midnight-blue-backed chairs and ladies' writing desk; she had a feeling that she disappeared behind Dumbledore's oak monstrosity, and her head barely cleared its surface when she sank down into his comfiest chair.

Dobby appeared in the middle of the Headmaster's Office with a _crack_ , and without a word.

Narcissa blinked at the House Elf in surprise.  She had never known a House Elf to be anything less than perfectly polite.  But then, Dobby always had been a little _odd_.

"Good evening, Mistress Malfoy," Dobby finally said, as though it had been pulled out of him with hot pincers.

"Headmistress Malfoy," Narcissa corrected, but she did not shout.  This, too, was odd beyond the telling of it.  She had never known a House Elf to mistake anyone's proper title, either.  Perhaps the thing was ill.

"H-H-Headmistress," the poor thing stammered.  " _Malfoy_ ," it said, a big fat tear falling down its ugly features.

Narcissa was so shocked that she stood and had her handkerchief half out of her pocket before realizing that she was dealing with a House Elf and not a distraught witch or wizard.  But then, she was halfway through the motion, and it would've seemed foolish to jerk her extended hand away.

Dobby stared at the handkerchief a long moment, before taking it into his hands and dabbing at his eyes.  He looked up at Narcissa with a queer frown, then stared down at the handkerchief clutched in his hands in consternation.

For the first time it occurred to her that the thing might actually be grieving, just like a person.  Not as a witch or wizard misses someone who has died, perhaps.  But, Narcissa allowed, perhaps something akin to it.  Perhaps it missed its old master, who was indubitably kinder to it than Narcissa and Lucius had ever been.

"Dobby is sorry," the mournful thing said in a wobbly, brittle voice.  "Dobby thanks the Headmistress for the handkerchief, of which he is not _worthy_.  What does the Headmistress require?"

Narcissa clamped down on the urge to worry her lip.  Her breeding – indeed, her entire life's experience up until this point – was urging her to press on, labeling the beast's concerns as beneath her notice.  But something told her that Draco would not consider even a House Elf as solely a _resource_ , would urge the small creature to tell him its troubles.

And it was only sensible to charm everyone and everything within reach, really.  Narcissa needed _loyalty_ , not blind obedience.  She had hoped that Dobby would still harbor some faint connection to the Malfoy family and household, but that was clearly not the case: the last she'd heard, Dobby was an anomaly, a Free Elf, and his odd behavior seemed to support the contradiction in terms.  He was under no true compunctions to obey her; she suspected the only thing that held him now was habit, and habit would not be enough for what she had planned.

Narcissa looked up from her contemplation to find that the creature – _Dobby_ – was blinking up at her, and looking rather resigned and heartbroken and small, as though he'd just been dealt a blow to the gut.

"Sit down," Narcissa said.  "I mean – _do_ sit down.  Please."

Dobby blinked at Narcissa suspiciously, looking so like McGonagall that Narcissa had to hold back a bark of startled laughter, but he sat all the same.

"Now, tell me what is the matter, if you please."  Narcissa raised both brows to indicate that the _if you please_ was a courtesy, and she expected to be obeyed.

Dobby squirmed.  "Mist – Headmistress Malfoy should not concern herself with –"

"But I do," Narcissa broke in.  "Do – do you miss the Headmaster very much?" she stammered awkwardly.

"All of us is missing Professor Dumbledore," the Elf conceded.

"Is that what's the matter?" she pressed.  "Do take a lemon drop; there appear to be hundreds of the things."

Dobby blinked up at her in confusion, then shook his head warily.  "Dobby is not wanting to be taking the liberty, Headmistress."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake!" Narcissa exclaimed, losing all attempts at subtlety.  "Can you not see I am attempting to be kind, I am attempting to be helpful!  I am attempting to show you in word and look and deed that I will not be the Mistress I was to you at the Manor!  Can you understand that?"

Dobby broke into fresh tears, though he did not hide his face.  Slowly, he nodded.  "Dobby is not knowing _why_ ," he whispered into Narcissa's hankie.

Narcissa took a deep breath.  "Because there are dark times ahead," she told the Elf.  "If I limit my reach to the old allies of my family, I shall have a short grasp, indeed.  Take the bloody lemon drop."

Dobby reached forward with shaking hands and unscrewed the tiny tin that held the old Headmaster's drops.  He took one and then, with a gesture sharp enough to seem guilty, popped it into his mouth.

"Thank you for accepting this small kindness," Narcissa said flatly.

Dobby blinked at her with his huge eyes.  "Yes, Headmistress.  What is the Headmistress wanting of Dobby?"

"The Headmaster – the old Headmaster, I suppose I should call him – he knew a great deal about the goings-on in the school, did he not?"

"People thought it magic," Dobby replied, with a cunning gleam to his eye that bespoke a very different sort of creature to the one who'd been weeping, before.

"But it wasn't.  Or not quite."  Narcissa held onto her sense of rising triumph.  "It was the portraits, wasn't it?"

"Yes, the portraits," the Elf agreed.  "And Dobby, himself."

Narcissa leaned forward, against her native impulse.  She had heard that some households used their Elves this way, but she had always thought them too slow, too foolish, too easily distracted to be put to such a purpose.  "You spied for the Headmaster?"

" _Spied_ , no," Dobby said, looking affronted.  "But if something is very important, Dobby is bringing it to the Headmaster's attentions, of course."

"And do the portraits answer to the Headmaster or Headmistress of Hogwarts?"

Dobby shook his head.  "Each is having its own personality, its own _mind_ , Headmistress.  Dobby is thinking that Professor Dumbledore had to win them over himself, one by one.  All of them, that is, but the Headmasters' and Headmistress' portraits, who are sworn to serve…"

Narcissa swallowed, tried not to show how intimidating the idea was, that she might have to 'win over' one-hundred-plus separate portraits.

"Some is being easy," Dobby said, which let Narcissa know she hadn't hidden her trepidation so well as she'd hoped.  "Sir Cadogan is being very easy and so is Mistress Violet.  Headmistress Malfoy need only be kind."

"And the Headmasters?"  Narcissa thought they would be most useful of all; they were famous men and women, with portraits all over the country and beyond, able to spy on a variety of households, banks, shops, libraries, museums and hospitals.  "They _do_ answer to the Headmistress?"

Dobby leaned forward, looking crafty, and Narcissa perched on the edge of the old Headmaster's squishy armchair to meet him.  When Dobby spoke, his voice was pitched low, so as not to alert the portraiture.  " _Obey_?  Yes.  Dobby knows they is obeying, but he thinks they is being harder at loyalty, Headmistress, some hardest and stubbornest of all.  But if the Headmistress were to get Professor Black on her side, he is thinking the rest would fall in line."

Narcissa leaned back.  A year ago, she would have considered such information her due from a mere House Elf such as Dobby, but even in so short a conversation – the longest she'd ever had with an Elf – she had discerned that he was almost entirely autonomous, without the need for direction and instruction she'd always assumed was part and parcel of _being_ a House Elf.  Even Narcissa's new position as Headmistress didn't entirely explain Dobby's helpfulness.

"Headmistress Malfoy is wondering why Dobby is helping her?" Dobby inquired, a queer tilt to his head she was not certain she liked; nor did she like how obvious her disquiet must have been for Dobby to understand her concerns so rapidly.  "It is because the Malfoys is turning against Him," Dobby said, in a low, whispery voice.

Narcissa blanched.  "I do not know where you have heard such madness.  You must tell me, immediately, who is carrying such a tale."

"It is the portraits, but they is not carrying tales."

"The portraits?" Narcissa echoed, sifting through a mental image of the Manor at lightning speed.  "A Malfoy has never been a Headmaster… no, we have no portraits of Headmasters at the Manor.  The accusation you have made must have no foundation – just the speculation of painted figures with nothing better to do with their time."  She shot the portraits on the wall a glare, but all of them were pretending to be _asleep_ , the cowards.

Dobby smiled.  "No Malfoys have ever been Headmaster – but Blacks.  Yes, there is a Black who was Headmaster.  And his portrait –"

"…is at Grimmauld Place," Narcissa finished, slumping in her chair.  "Phineas Nigellus Black knows everything."  She squinted down at Dobby.  "But why should he have told you?"

"He is not telling _Dobby_ anything, Mistress," Dobby replied.  "He is telling another portrait.  Something about Mudbloods in his most Ancient house?  Dobby just happens to be dusting the old Headmaster's things at the time."

Narcissa wondered how it was possible that she should have underestimated House Elves so very thoroughly.  "So.  You know of my son's allegiances."  _And of mine,_ she did not say: she still found herself curiously hesitant to reveal her entire hand, even though it was quite clearly far too late.

"Dobby knows," the Elf replied, eying her with a look that said he knew far more than Narcissa imagined.  "And is ready to aid the Headmistress in any way he knows how."

"There is another way in which you can aid me," Narcissa said.  "Were there any other ways in which Dumbledore kept track of the goings-on at the school?  Any other…" _spies,_ she thought.  "…helpers?"

"Dobby believes that some of the Gryffindors told him things, but Dobby is not certain.  Ginny Weasley and Neville Longbottom is coming up to see the Headmaster very often, yes, but Dobby is not hearing them talking about it so much."

Narcissa sighed.  Winning over Neville Longbottom and Ginevra Weasley was an unlooked-for challenge.  She was willing to accept that something could, perhaps, be made out of the Weasley boy – a lot of Cedrella in him, really – but she'd seen Ginevra Weasley for the fire-hearted, impetuous, self-important thing she was on five minutes' acquaintance.  The Longbottom boy was her polar opposite: plodding and unimaginative and just as likely to reveal a plot by accident as not.  Yet, if Dobby was correct – and she strongly suspected he was – then the pair were used to being in the thick of things, and if she let them wander about unaided, they could cause her no end of difficulty.

"Very well.  Thank you, Dobby," Narcissa said, eying the small creature and wondering if he were about to attach himself to her leg as she had seen him do to the poor Potter boy.

Dobby seemed to know better in her case.  "Dobby is happy to help in any small way he can," the Elf proclaimed with a small bow.  "If the Headmistress wants anything, she need only call for Dobby."

Funny how even a queer old creature such as a family House Elf could settle one, Narcissa thought.  Make one feel a bit less alone.

"Begin talking to the portraits by the Great Staircase, if you can," she told him.  "I am certain there are some who will be glad of an ex-Slytherin Headmistress, and will be relatively easy to convince.  But before you do," she said, with a deep breath, "call the House Elves back to finish arranging my office.  Tell them to put the items from the old Headmaster's bequest into storage.  And also, do call on Professor Burbage and tell her I must see her immediately."

Charity was a ruddy, pretty little thing, Narcissa observed, just what she would've pictured a Muggleborn witch to be, if she pictured one at all: she had red-gold hair that spilled across her shoulders in somewhat wild curls, and a strong nose and mouth, and rosy cheeks and broad shoulders.  "You are firing me," was the first thing she said, and Narcissa thought it admirable that her voice didn't waver.

"I want your resignation this evening, and I want you gone before first light," Narcissa replied.  "Hogwarts will not say you have been let go.  _Miss Burbage has gone on holiday.  Miss Burbage was desirous of spending more time learning of Muggle cultures; she is in Africa, in Mozambique.  Miss Burbage is pregnant, Miss Burbage is getting married to a wealthy Potions tycoon_ , take your choice, Miss Burbage.  In fact, I do strongly suggest you go off to Africa.  For awhile."

"This is my life you are so casually re-writing," Miss Burbage said, clenching and unclenching her fists.

"Better that than your obituary."

Miss Burbage crossed her arms over her chest, more color entering those cheeks of hers.  "Is there anyone else you'll be getting rid of, or just the Muggleborn professors?"

"Not just now," Narcissa said.  "But rest assured that I should rather fire the entire staff than see them tortured, or killed."

"Thank goodness the Headmistress is on our side," Burbage said, voice flat.

"Thank goodness, indeed," Narcissa replied.  "It is difficult for me to even imagine our beloved school if our Lord had his way; Severus Snape would have been your Headmaster, but also the Carrows – Alecto and Amycus – would have been teaching Defense. And perhaps your subject as well."

Charity startled, her curls bobbing.

"You know the Carrows, I see," Narcissa said, voice cold.

"By reputation only," Charity replied.  The young woman shifted her weight from foot to foot, and Narcissa tilted her head to one side, gesturing to the midnight-blue seat before her – the House Elves had completed their work in a whirlwind of activity long before Miss Burbage had arrived.

Burbage didn't take it.  "What," said Burbage, still dancing from foot to foot, "if I didn't want to leave?"

Narcissa raised her brows.  "I am not giving you a choice," she said.

"I don't have much of anything," Charity said.  "No savings.  I don't come from a wealthy family like you do, Headmistress, and I'm young.  There is precious little squirreled away.  Without employment, without a place to stay… I would do better here, I would be capable of _more_ here, I… I cannot leave the children."

Narcissa stared.  Burbage was very, very young and also very stupid.  "You're one of his, Dumbledore's," Narcissa said, gently, "and you'd like to continue on here in order to spy."

"No!" Charity exclaimed.  "No, I just – want employment.  Even a Mudblood like me needs to live."

Narcissa felt as though she'd been tossed into the Great Lake.  For all she'd heard the term bandied about amongst her husband's friends, and before that, her father's, she'd never heard a witch call _herself_ that filthy word.  It was… impressive, in its way.

"Very well," Narcissa said.  "I'll keep you on, if you wish your continued employment here so fervently."

Charity slumped, eyes dancing with relief and something _else_ , and Narcissa felt as if she'd just invited a viper to wind about her arm.

"But you will not be a professor any longer," Narcissa went on.  "You will be my servant.  You will serve as an example of the proper place of those with mixed blood."

Charity's dark blue eyes snapped, but, "very well, Headmistress," she said with a bent neck that would have fooled no one, and Narcissa least of all.

Narcissa reflected that she might well have spared Charity Burbage's life.  If a simple Muggle Studies professor had disappeared, she felt the Dark Lord might have been satisfied if she never showed her face again; but Miss Burbage had posted several scathing, impassioned editorials regarding "the smug British bigot", which Narcissa and her cohorts had found very disturbing.  She suspected that Africa would not have been too far to travel to make an example of the foolhardy Miss Burbage.  But under Narcissa's protection – and _reformed_ – the young witch stood at least an even chance of surviving the coming troubles intact, even of doing some work towards the greater good.  Looking at the bent head of Charity Burbage, covered in ruddy curls, Narcissa felt a queer sense of triumph building behind her breastbone.  This young woman, bent before her, quivering in what was very likely rage, owed her life to Narcissa Malfoy… and she didn't even know it.  It was a heady feeling, and she wondered if this was what had kept poor Severus at it for so long.

"You are not a very convincing servant," Narcissa said.  "Stand upright, if you please."

Charity straightened her spine, carefully blank-faced.

"I am much relieved to find that I shall have the aid of someone for whom Hogwarts is not such a profound mystery," Narcissa said, feeling her way.  "It has been many years since my schooldays here.  I expect I shall rely greatly on your advice in the days to come.  And I shall be – grateful for such advice.  Therefore, you need not bend your knee when we are alone.  We shall have to trust one another, you and I, and I shall expect you to speak plainly."

Miss Burbage looked puzzled, then bowed her head.  "I understand, Headmistress."

"Do you?" Narcissa frowned.  She had never realized servility could be so impertinent.  "If this arrangement is to be of benefit to us both, Miss Burbage, then you must learn quickly.  Your first lesson is that I mean what I say – always.  Your head up.  The next time you bend it to me, I shall cast a Stinging Hex at your chin."

Charity's head bobbed up with gratifying rapidity.  "Yes, Headmistress?"

"However," Narcissa went on, "in public, you must be far more subservient than you have been thus far.  It is natural that your actions may appear a bit begrudging at the first, but that should disappear over time, or others shall begin to wonder why I have kept you.  I shall begin to wonder that, myself."

"Yes, Headmistress," Charity replied, but kept her head up, and looked Narcissa in the eye.  "I will endeavor to be…"  Her lips twisted.  "…of _use_ to you."

"Yes, you shall.  Well.  We ought to begin as we mean to go on, I suppose.  Please fetch your things from your rooms – no more than three of anything: three dresses, three blouses, three skirts and no robes at all.  In neutral colours.  A _Sortis_ will do for your hair, and you will have no need of books or parchment or quills.  Do away with the rest, have it sent to the dungeons, it is no matter but that your rooms must be emptied.  Carry with you one personal item and only one, and it ought to be hidden."

The young woman already appeared different to Narcissa's eye.  Her features were losing their colour, as though she had already been kept from the sun for weeks, and her lips were in a thin, pinched line: her new station was slowly sinking in, to flesh and to bone.  For a moment, Narcissa almost felt sorry for her.  But then she knew two things that Charity did not: the first of which being that she would be a far better mistress than most, especially in her guise as _Draco_ ; the second that soon enough, it would only be due to Narcissa's charity that the young witch was alive at all.

"Come now, Miss Burbage," she said, "it is not all bad.  You have managed to keep your employment, and you have a very wealthy and well-connected Mistress," Narcissa said, more to see Charity's reaction than by way of comfort.  "Now, hop-to.  You shall be staying in the rooms next to mine, the better to see to my needs."

Burbage, to her credit, did not allow her blank expression to shift.  "Yes, Headmistress," she said.  "Right away."  Her expression twisted, and Narcissa realized she was attempting to look _grateful_ at the chance.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake.  No need to strain something.  Run along and do as you're told."

Charity made a clenched-jawed yet credible curtsey, and fled.

* * *

A/N:

Whoooo.  I almost didn't make it this time.  Please let me know if there are typos (if you're sure they are, please look up spelling 'mistakes' before you point them out), because I am wiped and I'm not sure I'm making of the sense with the things.

Charity Burbage insisted on staying, stubbornly.  She was not a character in my initial work/notes/brains, but in my mind she is a new(ish) member of the Order, and that's why she's so keen to stay on, just as Narcissa says.  Her brain is full of heroic images of how her suffering in solitude singlehandedly wins the War.

I love all chapters from Narcissa's point of view.  You'll get a few more in the coming weeks.  <3  I'm not sure why it's apparently so difficult to write characters who are 1) adult 2) females 3) in positions of power, who 4) handle that power with aplomb.  Finding one is like finding a freakin' unicorn.

Narcissa is my unicorn!

 

God, I'm tired.  Hope you guys had a great Valentine's Day, and I'll see you Wednesday, if I'm awake by then...

 

-K

 

Oh.  Oh.  Yeah, this week's show rec?  Is United States of Tara, a drama about a woman with multiple personalities.  It is really, really weird and awesome, and also? On Netflix.


	17. Brothers

It was funny, Draco Lucius Malfoy reflected, how much chaos could be caused by something so natural and common as a baby, if it were to appear out of nowhere.  The little creature was dark-haired and black-eyed and pale-skinned and also very vocal.  Before now, Draco had been certain that babies didn't _actually_ say 'goo' or 'gah'.  He'd just been proved wrong at high volume.

The baby sat up with enormous effort and a great deal of squirming, and stared at Malfoy with huge eyes.  It flapped its hands up and down on its thighs in sudden, energetic movement and babbled a blue streak of nonsense while he knelt in front of it, gobsmacked.

"…brought _back_ with you!" Malfoy's otherworldly counterpart was hissing a little ways off.  It was dim out, dawn's fingers creeping westerly.  So far as Malfoy could tell from the soundless moor, everyone else was still sleeping, which was just as well; at least the other _him_ wasn't able to play the martyr now, not without an audience.

"I couldn't very well leave him there," said Potter, scrubbing a hand through the back of his hair.  "You wouldn't understand."

But of course, they _could_.  They could both _feel_ the injury in Potter, the squirming in his gut at the thought of abandoning a baby in – if one gave Potter's own babbling any credence – the Land of the Dead.  Malfoy could feel it in his bones, the wrong of it, and he could feel Potter feeling it and the _other one_ feeling it, and the feeling bounced around in his skull and his ribcage until he half wanted to snatch the creature up and cradle it against his chest and swear to it, _never, never, NEVER_ , which was – which was _mad_ , but there it was.

The baby blinked up at him and slapped him atop the nose.  Malfoy hadn't realized he was leaning so close.

"Leaving aside what I may or may not understand," the otherworldly, creepily mature version of himself said in a tired, very grown-up voice, "have you considered what you should _do_ with the baby once you rescued it?  Or did you simply suppose that, as card-carrying Hero Extraordinaire, your job was merely to pull the baby from the jaws of danger?"

"Shut it," Potter ordered, which wasn't really an answer at all, and they all three knew it.

Something strange and hot and a little bit mad felt like it was beginning a slow boil in Malfoy's chest.  The baby fell forward on its fat hands and crawled right up to him.  It was a new, innocent human _thing_ and he, with the help of Potter and someone who looked a great deal like him but _wasn't_ had plucked it from the Land of the Dead like… like a bloody head of _cabbage_ from a _garden_.

"Wasn't there anyone _there_ ," his counterpart went on, gaining steam, "wasn't there anyone _there_ who was responsible enough to keep it?  Or did you suppose you were uniquely qualified somehow?  I've got to hand it to you, Harry.  You've done some bloody reckless things before, but this tops them all."

Malfoy could still _feel_ them both, and that was its own sort of madness, each in perfect, panicked accord and yet still furious with one another.  When the _other_ Draco Malfoy said _uniquely qualified_ , a resounding _YES_ pounded down the course of Potter's thoughts, and Draco's older-brother disappointment, while out of place in so, so, _so_ many ways, was really – somehow – _uncannily_ apropos.

"Snape said we should keep it."

Malfoy would have liked to transfer his entire attention to Potter, because that statement was ridiculous, but the baby had reached him.  It stood, shakily, pressing one hand into his thigh to push itself upward.  Then, it flung itself forward with such abandon that he was forced to catch it.

He was _holding_ this baby from nowhere, now, in his arms.  It smelled good in a primal, baby way.  It babbled into his ear and put its head on his shoulder with a sigh.

Malfoy's brain must have short-circuited, because when he looked up, the two other boys were staring at him.

"Are you all right?" Draco said, but he certainly didn't have to.  He was broadcasting his worry so loudly that Potter, beside him, twitched like he wanted to press his hands up over his ears.

Malfoy shook his head.  He had an armful of squirming, deceased, _possibly Lord Voldemort_ infant, and it was drooling on his robes at the shoulder.  He wished, irrationally, for Ronald which, well – how many brands of madness could one exhibit before one toppled under the pile?  The simmer in his chest was up to a rolling boil.  Any moment, now, he was going to explode and take _possibly Lord Voldemort_ with him.  Or else he was going to unravel, like an old cloak with a loose thread.

He was on his feet and off down the moors, then, towards the camp, before the others could stop him or say a word, though he could feel their worry beat-beat- _beating_ at the back of his mind, like unwelcome callers hanging on the bell, _knowing_ you are at home.  The warm baby-weight in his arms had gone entirely limp… _traversing realities must be tiring work for an infant_ , he thought.  He clutched the thing closer to him; he needed something to clutch.

The thing was – the thing was, it was entirely natural to feel indebted to someone who had nursed you back to health in wartime, it was some kind of Stockholm Syndrome or something worse, but he felt that if he didn't hear Ronald's voice or, failing that, his mother's or Severus's, telling him that things were all right he might actually take a little vacation from his senses.

Again.

When Draco had pelted down the rocky fields around Hogwarts, towards the Lake, towards Hogsmeade, away from the grinning skull that stretched across the sky, he had been able to feel his heart beating in his fingertips and thrumming in his ears, a persistent _thump-thumping_ that almost drowned out the sound of screaming and cursefire.  _Away, away, he had to get away._   Once beyond the wards, Snape would Apparate him away; Snape would protect him. There was _still_ no Apparating at Hogwarts, despite what he had done with the Cabinet, but he would be away from here soon, and it would all be over.

He had come to awhile later with a start, blinking rapidly.  The sky was still sickly-green; there was shouting and madness and the thump of running feet.  So he couldn't have been lying down for long, but he couldn't imagine why he should have stopped running in the first place.

It took that long before he felt the pain, and instinctively probed with shaking fingers at the back of his skull.  His hands came away wet, and at first he thought that some animal had pissed in the field – _disgusting, disgusting, as if I don't have enough troubles_ – because it hadn't rained, but when he held his hand up to his face, it gleamed black in the light of the winking skull carved up in the sky.

Malfoy stared at it for a long moment, watched as it shimmered wetly when he tilted his wrist this way and that.  It took longer than it should have for him to recognize what must have happened, that it was blood on his hands, that the blood was his, from the back of his head.  Icy panic set in.  That was too much blood – surely that was too much.  His stomach churned with sudden nausea, and he turned to retch into the grass.

Leaning over a wet patch of his own blood and coughing out the last of the disgusting mess in his mouth, Draco considered his options, if the mad thoughts chasing their tails in his mind could be so kindly named.  He recognized right away that it was harder to hold on to them, that this was what people meant when they said _losing my grip_ , because every coherent thought he pushed for seemed to slip _just_ out of his grasp, and that made him panic even more, which made it even harder to think.

There was a warm trickle running down the back of Draco's neck, now – _perhaps it's raining after all – no, no, you've had that thought already, you useless_ idiot – and he had to go, he had to get somewhere, someone was waiting for him.

Professor _Snape_ was waiting for him.  And that must be at the Castle.  Anyhow, Malfoy reasoned, he would know what to do.

 _But Hogwarts is dangerous_ , part of his mind insisted.

That was fine.  Draco was very good at being sneaky.  He'd get into one of the secret passages, that was all.  Snape would find him there; Snape could find him anywhere, and meanwhile he would be safe.

Decision made, Malfoy stood, and though he wobbled, he persevered.  He pushed past people running in the opposite direction a number of times, people who gave him barely a second glance.  He saw Flitwick herding a group of third-years into a quiet classroom; and once, a blurry Ginny Weasley darted past him, wand extended.  It was odd, as though he were a ghost or out of his own time, as though he weren't one of them at all.  Then he remembered he'd been feeling that way for months.

Draco didn't recall opening the statue of the Humpbacked Witch, but he must've done because here he was, tucked in the secret passage that led to Hogsmeade.  Snape would come soon, and take him… someplace.  Somewhere safer and quieter and less green.

Draco entertained a brief fantasy where his mother was the one who found him.  She called him brave and brilliant and clasped him to her.  Perhaps he could be forgiven, then, for supposing Ronald Weasley to be a hallucination, at first.

" _Draco._   Draco!  Bloody _fucking_ hell," the apparition swore.  It Vanished the vomit on Draco's shirtfront and the flagstones and fell to its knees before him.

"… _Weasel_?" Malfoy said, because, well.  It was that unlikely.  He must've been more twisted than he'd thought, to conjure Weasley of all people.

"Merlin's arse," Weasley said, with more conviction this time.  "Listen, just trust me.  I'm going to help you," he went on, casting a basic diagnostic spell.  "How do you feel?"

Malfoy swallowed past bile and rolled his eyes.  He immediately regretted it – even that much shifting of his gaze caused the now-familiar roiling in his stomach.  He refocussed on the image of Weasley, which wasn't hard – the redhead was staring at him with an unfamiliar intensity.  "What do _you_ think?" he demanded, then shivered.  "I – it's very cold here.  I'm very cold.  You don't look cold," he tacked on, staring at Weasley.  One more tick in the hallucination column – Draco felt like he should be able to see his breath.

"You're in shock," Weasley said.  "Pretty bad, I think.  We need to get you to the Hospital Wing."

Coherent conversation, even with himself, was causing Malfoy's thoughts to sharpen – or maybe that was because the Weasel kept running his wand over Draco, cursing to himself and casting again and again.  His memories returned in a rush of sound and color, and Malfoy knew why he oughtn't to be here.  What he had done.  He was freezing and he – he couldn't get enough air, no matter how hard he gasped.

"Fuck, fuck, bloody _fucking_ …" the Apparition said, and cast something else.

Draco didn't remember the Weasel cursing this much.  But maybe it was his _vision_ of Weasley, or his _version_ thereof, and his version cursed.  (Loads.)

Malfoy's lungs inflated and compressed entirely without his permission.  After a moment, the panic eased.  Weasley was leaning in close, now, and it took Draco a moment to realize that the other boy was pulling Draco's cloak out from where it was tangled under him.  Draco felt nimble fingers draw his hood up about his ears and tighten the stays; he felt warm hands re-settle his cloak around him, and finally…

Malfoy's mind shied away.  _No_ , he thought, and _no, I don't want this, I wouldn't imagine…_

Weasley wormed his way beneath the cloak, until warm boy was pressed to Draco from shoulder to hip, burning through Draco's shivering.  Weasley opened up his left arm and _tucked_ Draco under it, and _why had Draco invented a_ snuggling _version of Ronald Weasley?_ It boggled the mind.

He was twisted.  Twisted and sick.

But when Weasley rubbed at Draco's shoulder and muttered, "you're freezing," Draco sighed and admitted to himself that his subconscious probably knew best.

"That's nice," he said drowsily, "but I must hate myself, seeing as it's you.  Or maybe you're about to turn me in, maybe even I don't think I deserve…"

"Maybe you'd prefer Harry or Hermione," Weasley said, tone cautious.  "They're better at this sort of thing."

Draco snorted, lips twitching against his better judgment.  "No – no, you'll do," he assured the Apparition hastily.  Granger would spit in his face and Potter would stand over his shaking form and shout accusations and maybe cast that curse again, and _blood_.  This imaginary version of the Weasel was surprisingly good.  Draco thought that if he were to die right now, at least he had saved his family, and at least he could feel… kind of peaceful, just now.  The thought terrified him the moment it was over, but still, he had to call it his own.

"You don't want to go to the Wing," Weasley checked in an even, calming voice.

"Mmm," Draco agreed.  At some point, his eyes had fluttered shut.  He had no interest in opening them.

"Well, why in Merlin's name not?"  His imaginary Weasel sounded exasperated.

Draco wondered where the redhead got off asking.  Perhaps Draco just enjoyed torturing himself.  "They think I killed Dumbledore, I can't exactly waltz in."  Draco kept his eyes tightly closed.  He didn't understand why the apparition wanted him to say it.

"Go back and tell them you didn't do it, then," Weasley returned, supremely confident.

"How do you -?  Well, of course you'd know," Malfoy dismissed a moment later.  The Weasel would know that he hadn't got the stones, of course he would, would know everything Draco knew.  "D'you think they'd really believe me?" he scoffed.

Weasley paused, fingers ceasing their motion against Draco's shoulder.  "I'm not sure," he said.  "Everything's gone all arse over teakettle.  Everyone thinks Snape's gone all double, triple, quadruple-cross–"

"I don't think he knows words like 'quadruple'," Draco muttered, turning his head sleepily into Ronald's shoulder.  He trembled less and less under the dark cloak.  "I don't think he knows words more than two syllables, actually."

"That's… well.  I'm not sure if I should be insulted or flattered, seeing as how I _do_."

"You're hysterical.  Really."

Ronald let out a huff of breath.  "Can you tell me what happened to the Professor?  Where he would have gone?"

When Draco didn't respond, Ronald bumped shoulders with him.  "Professor _Snape_?  _Draco._ "

Draco's eyes blinked open with great effort.  "Dunno," he slurred.  Weasley re-cast the diagnostic charm; Draco did suppose he sounded miles away from his usual, cultured self.  "We got – separated."  Draco frowned at the thought, but he felt so tired, and keeping his eyes open, even for this quietly accommodating hallucination of Ronald Weasley, was proving to be a challenge Draco wasn't up to facing.

Ron jostled Draco lightly with the arm wrapped around him.  "We'll figure it out."

"That would be nice," Draco replied as he teetered on the brink of sleep.  "Just – like this.  When things go wrong."  A tiny pause.  "Things have gone really, really wrong."

Ronald sighed.  "Yeah, mate, I know."  His hand had settled, of all places, on Draco's hair, and pulled at the messy, tangled strands.  "We'll take care of it; you'll see."

And with that, Draco had felt a small measure of his burden shift off his shoulders.  That sensation, of even a small measure of his obligation lifting, had been indescribable after being bent under that burden for so long.  He'd made a small noise and descended into the blackness of a dreamless sleep.

When the baby shifted in its own restless slumber and babbled a half-formed word, Malfoy realized was standing silent over Ronald Weasley's sleeping form in the glow of early morning.  To wake him first was as good as admitting he needed Ronald to ground him, to tell him it was _all right_.

Draco reached out a shaking hand and pressed it to Ron's shoulder.

Ronald uncurled from sleep like some giant cat, all long limbs and lazy attention.  Ronald saw immediately that he was not the Draco Malfoy from… over there.  Funny, that.  He thought the other Ron could do it too, just on sight.  No checking anything, just look in his face and say, _yes – that's him._

"There's a baby," said Ron.

And Draco felt a blinding gratefulness because he'd grasped the problem so quickly, so effortlessly.  Yes, there was a fucking _baby_.  It was asleep on his shoulder.  It had come from the Land of the Dead.  It possibly housed the Dark Lord's soul, or at least a tiny piece of it.

"Merlin, Malfoy – where did you find a baby at this hour?"

A laugh was bubbling inside of Draco's chest.  It was a bad sort of laugh; he was pretty sure it oughtn't come out.  But leave it to Ronald Weasley to talk as if Malfoy had come back to Ron's flat with exotic takeaway.

"Whoa, easy."  And _there_ was the thing that Draco needed.  Ronald had gone all serious-eyed, and rock-steady.  He reached out to Draco's shoulder and squeezed.  "Start from the beginning."

So Malfoy did.  By the time he was through, Ronald's expression was a thundercloud.  "Why in Merlin's name did you let them talk you into that?" he said, voice rasping with the early hour and – something else.  "I don't know what my Draco was thinking, but…"  Ron ran a rough hand through his red curls.  "…trying to prevent Harry Potter from doing something unforgivably stupid, what is he always thinking?" he growled.

"You have a younger sister," Malfoy blurted, hand to the back of the baby's head.  His arms were aching and he could see – and _feel_ – two figures approaching the camp.  "You've at least _seen_ a baby changed, before.  Which is more than Potter and the Boy Saviour could say."  He realized he'd referred to his alternate _self_ as the Boy Saviour and blinked.  Everything was getting all turned around.

Ronald seemed to think so, too.  "I'm only a year older than Gin," he said, apology in his tone.  "I was a baby myself when mum was seeing to her.  You know as much about babies as I do."  He frowned.  "Merlin, this isn't good."

The baby was still asleep, but Draco couldn't help but think that this holding pattern couldn't last forever.

"We've little cousins, but Gin always watched them," Ron babbled, running a hand through his wild, overgrown hair again.  "But I know they need milk and nappies and that we've got neither one."

Draco nodded.  The first step then, was to somehow conjure milk and nappies.

What was he thinking?  The first step was to think about where they could leave the baby, and with whom.

"Nappies, nappies…?" Ronald was muttering, fumbling about in the cold light of dawn.  "I need something like cloth."

"Cloth-like," Malfoy repeated, and then he was searching around obediently, fingers slipping over Ronald's bag until his fingers crashed into the other boy's; Draco's hand jerked away.  He brought his hand up over the back of the baby's head, as though he were worried about supporting it, and hoped Ron didn't notice.

"Here, lay him down a mo'," Ron said, pressing some grasses flat.  He laid his cloak over the crushed greenery, and Draco leaned down slowly, by centimeters, until the baby lay in the warm summer air.  When Draco let go, the baby frowned and flailed its fists; but it did not, mercifully, awaken.

"Are we going to talk about it?" Ronald said, not looking up.  His long, shaggy hair swept across his eyes, and Malfoy couldn't read his expression.

"I suppose that perhaps we could entrust a House Elf to the caring of an infant," Draco said in a high voice.  "I was looked after by House Elves until I was three years old."

"Which explains a lot," Ronald said, yanking a towel out of his travel bag and ripping it into sections.  His voice was still calm, and the words were belied by the gentle teasing behind them.  "But I'm talking about why you ran off to the Manor.  Alone.  _While I was asleep._ After we both agreed that you might as well take it into your head to sit on a hornet's nest."

Draco marveled at how his mouth felt entirely empty of words.  He watched while Ronald stretched the thick terrycloth until it was fine and loose, like muslin, then folded it into squares.  Meanwhile, Potter and Boy Hero were clambering down the hillock like a pair of small, Wizarding elephants.  If he waited much longer, any chance of explaining himself, of making Ronald understand, would disappear.  He knew the other boy would not ask again.

After some maneuvering, Malfoy lifted the baby up by its legs with one hand and scootched the makeshift nappie underneath with the other.  Ron pulled the other half of the nappie up over the baby's stomach, and tied the edges together with none-too-strong-looking knots.  But it looked like it'd do.

Malfoy looked up to smile at Ronald, but the smile felt twisted on his face.

"My mum," Ron said suddenly.  "My mum, of _course_ my mum.  She'll know what to do."  He stood, as though his mum were on the other side of the moor, and all he needed to do was fetch her.

"I just," said Malfoy, while Ronald transfigured one more bit of cloth into a light blanket to cover the baby's haunches, a little bit red with what looked to be a fading rash.

Malfoy didn't say: _There's something about home that reminds you of being taken care of_.  _It reminds you of that myth of childhood, that certainty that you are perfectly safe, long after you should know better._

 _I thought_ , he didn't say, _that if I went back home things would go back to normal, and I'd understand what to do next._

Draco absolutely did not add, _it horrifies me sometimes, the way I keep looking to you like if you've saved me once you'll save me again and again, and I wanted to be away from you, just for a little while, just to see how it'd feel._

Ronald sighed.  "Look, just – don't do it again.  I don't fancy chasing after you anymore, especially not through He-Who-Ought-To-Be-Ashamed's fortress with a war on."

Malfoy nearly choked on not saying, _but that's my house, I live there,_ because as angry as Ron's words made him feel, they were true.  It was because they were true that he was angry, and that was as sideways and crooked as everything else, two of him and Potter living in his head and Weasley living in his pocket, and his father living in Azkaban.

Ron turned to stare at him, and Malfoy wished he could say for certain that Ron didn't know Legilimency, but there was his luck, again.  For all he knew, this Ronald Weasley had learned it at Snape's knee.  And then there was the _Necto fiddes_ , which had to have been working subtly between them for some time, he realized with a jolt.  With the way spells cast on the _other_ Malfoy seemed to bounce back to Draco, it made sense – not to mention the fact that the nature of _Necto fiddes_ conscripted the entire Malfoy family into the service of every Weasley.  He wondered if Ronald had put that all together, yet.

"Just swear you'll come to me, first.  Let me know that you're going, and where.  I'll understand if you can't keep on with this.  It's all mad, isn't it?"

Malfoy squirmed.  Ron's eyes on him felt too heavy, he felt smothered, he wanted to shake off that regard.  "I'll come to you first," he said.

Ronald smiled, relaxed, so it must've been the truth.  "Okay.  Good.  I just – like you where I can see you," he said with a frown, as though that puzzled him as much as Draco.  "It wasn't so long ago you were really very ill, and you still look a bit –"

"Shut up," Malfoy said.  "I know that."

Ronald scrubbed the back of his neck.  "It's not just that... it's also the -"

"For Merlin's sake, I know that, too," Malfoy growled.

"Hey," interrupted another voice, and Malfoy was shocked to realize that in the heat of the argument he'd missed Potter and the Boy Hero arriving.

"Hullo," Ronald said, standing up to meet the _other_ one, all friendly lines and relieved smile.

Malfoy wanted to slap it off his face.  The force of the impulse shook him.

It shook Potter, too, who looked towards Malfoy in surprise.  He quickly schooled his features to arrogant impassivity.  Default.

While Ronald and the _other one_ were talking, Potter knelt and blinked at the sleeping baby.  "Wow," he said, "you two work fast."

Malfoy's gaze darted up to Potter, but the words seemed genuine and so did the feeling behind them.  Potter was observing the new blanket with clear admiration, and when his gaze lit on the baby's face, he smiled.  Potter looked up to share that smile with Malfoy, shedding quiet joy like sunlight.  Like the baby was _his_ , really, and if Malfoy felt a little bit of the same way, that was only the remnants of his madness talking.

"Weasley thought we'd take the baby to his house," Malfoy said.

Potter blinked, then blinked again in the face of this news.  The happy glow in his head dimmed to a dissonant jangle of sound.  Then, steel blocks fell all around him, as though he were building a shining, impenetrable wall, brick by soldered brick.  "That seems best," he said with a mature little nod.

Which made Draco wonder if he were surrounded by madmen, or if this was what the inside of everyone's head looked like.  The thought felt more profound than it should have, because if Potter were like this, Potter – the hope of the Light, the Hero of Gryffindor – then maybe he wasn't so strange after all, even if the inside of his head didn't feel like his own, sometimes.  And that had been before the bond.  "Can you hear me thinking?" Malfoy wondered aloud, surprised at his own daring.

Potter turned to him, that wall shimmering as if it had been coated in ice.  "It's faded, mostly," he said slowly, thinking.  "But if you have a strong reaction, I can still…"  He shrugged.

"But what is it _like_?" he pushed, slipping past the uncomfortable thought that, at least for Potter, the sensations were fading, where for Draco they seemed to be getting _stronger._

"It's like…" Potter shrugged, shoulders close-in: uncomfortable, then, and no wonder, Malfoy supposed.  "It's like noise through water."  There was a small pause.  "Listen, er… I'm sorry."

If there hadn't been a sleeping baby nearby – and if the prospect of that baby awakening to alertness hadn't terrified Malfoy past all reason – he might've shaken Potter until his teeth rattled in his head.

"For, you know… pulling you into the mind-thing.  I really didn't mean to – _we_ really didn't.  I didn't think it'd be that way, you know – that magic done on him would come to you."

Malfoy stayed stonily silent, mostly because Potter was apologizing for entirely the wrong things.  The mind-bond was horrible, a breach of privacy of the most unimaginable sort, but it was hardly the worst thing that had happened to him in the past year, not by a mile.

"And… I should've listened to you."

Draco looked up in surprise.

Potter's eyes were dancing to Draco's face and then away, across the moorish distance, as though he were looking for someplace to hide in this featureless landscape.  "At Hogwarts, when I found you with Moaning Myrtle, I – I should've asked you –"

"Maybe you should stop speaking," Malfoy rasped.

"I shouldn't have cast _Sectumsempra_ when I didn't know what it was," Potter blurted, features milk-white.  "You don't even know, when I thought I'd killed you –"

"Merlin!" Malfoy shouted.  " _Shut up_!"

The baby opened its eyes and wailed.

Malfoy's first instinct was to snatch it up, but Potter beat him to the punch which was just as well.  Granger was the first to stir, and he didn't fancy explaining to her where the baby had come from.

He blanched, a frightening thought intruding as he stared at the baby in Potter's arms.  What if Lupin wanted to kill the thing, or Granger wanted to study it, or this world's Weasley wanted to – who knew what?  And what would Snape say, when he returned?

It was only when he felt Ronald's hand on his shoulder that Draco realized he'd been falling back.

"What was that?" Ronald whispered.  "What did Potter say to you?"

Draco shook his head.  "Nothing.  Or exactly the wrong thing – it doesn't matter."

"What are we going to say?" Potter whispered, rocking the baby and bouncing it a bit in his arms…

And everyone looked to _him_.  The _other one._ Draco still marveled, whenever he had the spare energy.

"We'll say you brought it back from the Land of the Dead, that it couldn't pass on and that there was no-one to take care of it," the other Draco Malfoy replied with thoughtful confidence, and Potter nodded, relieved.

Malfoy wondered if part of Potter _remembered_ yielding to Draco in those memories that he'd borrowed – remembered orders given and accepted, at the deepest level, even if those memories were not quite his own.  But then he realized Potter had been following after his counterpart long before their bonding spell took hold.

Granger sat up, hair frizzier than ever in the early-morning moisture, eyes blinking sleepily.  "Good morning," she said, clearly still operating from pure instinct.  "What are you holding?  Oh; it's a baby."

Draco waited.

"It's a baby," Granger repeated, more slowly this time, as though she could manage to make those same words make more sense if she said them just the tiniest bit differently.  " _Why_ is there a baby?" she tried.

Meanwhile, Ron Weasley was stirring just across from her.  He stood, pulling Granger to her feet.  "What?" he tried.  Then, "where?"

Malfoy looked to Potter to find that the Gryffindor was holding his bundle oddly close for somebody facing his two best friends.

"It's from the Land of the Dead.  No-one could look after it, and Potter, being the Hero he is, snatched it up and brought it back with him."

No one was more surprised than Malfoy himself that he had said those words.  But the grateful, confused look Potter shot him was almost worth it.

"Land of the… Dead?" Granger stammered.  "…Harry?"

"Why were you in the Land of the Dead?" came Lupin's voice.

Malfoy whirled.  Well he remembered the man's uncanny ability to creep about unseen.  Lupin had once come up behind him when he was doing a full-on impression of the Defense teacher, complete with patched cloak and fraying cuffs.

Potter, the sod, looked as though he'd forgotten the answer to that question entirely.  "Getting rid of my Horcrux," he said, like a man said 'dropping off my laundry', or 'off to the store for some bread and milk'.

There was an ominous silence.

"Oh my god," Granger said, went white and sank quite abruptly to her knees.  "Dead.  You mean you were _dead_."

The other Draco was at her side in a minute.  "There, Hermione," he said.  "It wasn't quite like that.  Me and… Malfoy were there, to look out for him."

"You and _Malfoy_?" Weasley echoed.

Ronald broke in, with a glare in the other boy's direction.  "You said you'd wait for Professor Snape," he reminded Potter.

Granger and Weasley looked devastated, and Draco wondered, more than a bit uncharitably, if it wasn't from fear for Potter's life, but because they'd been left out.  For once, they were the two coming to the adventure just a bit too late.

"I know," Potter said, looking genuinely upset, "I know I promised.  I'm sorry.  But I couldn't let Professor Snape be the one to do it again, I couldn't.  The Headmaster made him – so I couldn't."

Which was more than a little funny, but Malfoy supposed that if he were really going to panic every time someone turned his world on its head, he'd never see straight again.  He did notice that Granger's expression had softened, as though Snape's feelings meant something to her.

"So you decided to ask the Malfoy boys?" Lupin inquired.  "Harry… the Killing Curse is an Unforgivable.  If one of them…"

"Neither of them did a thing," Potter replied, and Malfoy felt as though a strange fire had been kindled in the other boy.  His steel walls were reflecting gold and amber and garnet with hints of dancing shadows, now, as though there were an inferno just behind them.  "The Malfoys _helped_ me stay anchored, just like we planned.  I cast the curse myself."

Malfoy wondered how many uncomfortable silences one group could stomach before they stomped off in opposite directions.

"You cast the Killing Curse…" Lupin echoed.

The fire in Potter's core flared like someone had dumped lamp oil on it.  "On _myself_ ," he hissed.

The other Draco reached up and placed a firm palm on Potter's shoulder.  "Harry," he said in a low voice – Malfoy thought he was the only other one who could hear it – and Potter relaxed by inches.

"We decided we're going to take the baby to Mrs. Weasley at the Burrow," the other Draco said to the group at large in that quiet, sure voice of his.  "She'll know what to do."

Lupin looked relieved for the first time, and nodded, cautiously.

"None of us know the first thing about babies…" Hermione conceded, slowly approaching the small creature in Potter's arms.  "Oh!" she said, when the baby's wide, dark eyes and cottony, black hair was revealed.  "He's so small."

Potter looked up at her with a tiny smile, and Granger reached out for the baby's hand.

Lord Voldemort grasped her finger in his fist and waved it about.

"Ooooh," Hermione cooed.  "Look at you!"

The irony might have been physically painful, if that was possible.  Draco saw the _other one_ making an identical face to his own, and strove to blank his expression.

"Very well," Lupin said.  "But it's not as though even a hungry baby takes precedence over our larger quest."  He turned to Weasley.  "In case you're forgetting, Ron, your mother believes you were abducted by Death Eaters.  Neither you, nor Harry nor Hermione is going to escape after a few moments of discussion."

Weasley turned a funny colour and coughed, ducking his head; Ronald folded his arms across his chest.  "Why would his mum think _that_?"

The other Draco turned to face Ronald.  "It was my own idea, and I'm sorry.  But we thought, the longer everyone believed we'd been kidnapped, the better.  Mister Weasley knows."

Ronald's features relaxed into familiar lines.  "He's probably told Mum, then.  There isn't anything he could keep a secret from her for long."

Potter looked up over the baby's head, bouncing it as it fussed.  "We're not abandoning our larger quest, Remus," he said.  "We'll Apparate to the Burrow, that's all.  If it takes an hour or two to explain things to Ron's mum, it's only an hour or two.  Draco bought us weeks when he and Ron spirited us out of Hogwarts before the school year ended."

"It doesn't mean we have time to spare," Lupin said.  "Dallying loses us the advantage we gained."  When Potter said nothing in return, he sighed.  "I shall send my Patronus to Snape to tell him where we've gone."

As if he had any say in the matter, Malfoy thought, watching his counterpart press his right hand to Potter's shoulder and his left to Granger's, before going off to talk to Ron Weasley, who still seemed nonplussed.  That was, until the _other one_ got to him.  They leaned their heads together – silver and copper – and a minute later, Weasley nodded, his jaw firming.

"It's very strange, isn't it?" Ronald asked, arms crossed over his chest.

"Yes," Draco said, without thinking.  "I mean – what?"

"He's a natural diplomat," Ronald replied.

"He's a bloody _snake charmer,_ " Malfoy shot back, then paused, unnerved by his choice of words.  " _Bloody._ I've been spending too much time around _you_."

Ronald laughed, clapping Draco's back hard enough to make him stumble forward.  "No, that's just you, Malfoy," he said.  "You pick up everything, natural as breathing. "

"And that's a _good_ quality."

Ronald frowned.  "I mean, usually.  Though I guess that's why you stayed such a raving prat for so long.  You surrounded yourself with raving prats."

"You're saying that if I were introduced to _the right crowd_?  That you could _help me there_?" Draco raised his eyebrows, prodding.

"I'm always shocked how much you remember that speech.  Like, word-for-word, the both of you.  It's mad.  Or genius."

"It's neither.  I'd practiced it before that first train ride to Hogwarts.  A lot."

"Oh," Ronald said, sympathetically.  "Ouch."  He ruffled Draco's hair.  "And I reckon I've already gone and introduced you to the right sort, haven't I?"

Malfoy found he wasn't really sure.  "That depends.  Is 'the right sort' stupid enough to save their worst enemy from Death?"

Ronald shrugged.  "It's the _good_ sort, anyhow.  Potter – both Potters – they're the same.  Give him a minute to think and he picks… well, not the _right_ choice, but the _good_ choice.  Rush him and he'll choose whichever's the harder path.  That's why he likes having Draco around so much," he said, nodding over to where Draco – _the other one_ , Malfoy swiftly corrected – was helping secure the baby in a sling around Potter's shoulder.  "Draco can make the swift decisions, but he second-guesses himself if he gets to thinking about things too long.  Reckon they balance each other out."

The baby secure, Potter looked up at the _other_ Draco with a grin so huge and full of relief that it could be seen from space.  And maybe it was the bond between the three, but suddenly Malfoy understood.  Potter needed someone to look after him the way he insisted on looking after others, selflessly and passionately.  Draco - the other Draco, anyway - was his ballast, his balance, his support.  Exactly what he needed.

"Draco's no snake charmer," Ronald went on, "he just knows everyone here better than they know him.  It makes him seem smarter than he really is.  An' it's the same with me.  I know I can get away with ruffling your hair because you've secretly always wanted an older brother, ever since you read _Kosopeia Tales_ when you were nine."

Malfoy swallowed, and wondered why he was so often out of words when around this particular iteration of Ronald Weasley.

"Ready," Potter announced, slowly releasing the baby.  When the baby stayed firm and snug against his chest, he nodded.

"I don't fancy explaining this to Mum," Weasley told everyone as the group gathered together.  He blanched.  "Don't reckon she'll think it's _mine,_ do you?"

Draco snorted.  "With that hair?  More likely she'll think it's Potter's."

Malfoy heard himself snort in an eerie echo of the exact same noise that his counterpart had issued a moment before.  He pushed past the strangeness to contribute, "...suppose we pass him off as Snape's?"

"That's presuming Snape's capable of –" Ron Weasley began.

"Oi!" Ronald interrupted.  "Enough out of you."

Weasley grinned at him, nodding towards the baby.  "Nah, after all, it hasn't got that big a nose."

Draco – _the other_ – Malfoy… Draco's brain shriveled up in sheer defeat… _the other one_ laughed aloud.  "The poor man isn't even here to defend himself."

"And if he were, we couldn't say it," Ron replied.  "We'll have to side-along Apparate, since a lot of us don't know the Burrow right?"

"What's the problem?" Granger said, approaching them.

"The Malfoys haven't ever visited the Burrow," Ronald said.

"Oh!" she exclaimed.  "I've been loads of times.  I'll take you, Draco.  I mean – you, Draco," she said, eyes scanning them for a moment before picking out _the other_ and hauling him forward.

Malfoy noticed the boy took it with good grace, and held out his arm for her to slip into his.  Odd – he hadn't thought a Mudblood would understand such a gesture, but Granger followed Draco's lead with more grace than he'd had expected.  " _The Malfoys_ ," he muttered, "like we're long-lost twin brothers, or something."

The other one shrugged.  "I thought it sounded that way, too.  Odd, isn't it, even the suggestion of having a brother?"

"If we're all through," Potter interrupted.

Malfoy saw that the baby was getting just slightly fidgety.  Probably it was hungry.  Though it could be sleepy or gassy or need a change or have a fever or a million other little things he didn't understand and never thought he'd need to suss out.

"Ready," Granger and… Draco announced together.  Draco shot her a smile that was clearly warm and affectionate.  Malfoy thought his features might relax like that when he regarded his mother, but Hermione Granger?  It was too much to even look at, so he turned to Ronald.

Ronald was offering his own arm.

Malfoy shoved the offending appendage away.  "I'm not a _lady_ , Weasley," he scoffed.

"Would you prefer I hold you in my manly arms?" Ronald returned.  "We're Apparating; you're going to have to latch on somehow.  But if you'd rather…"

Malfoy slipped his hand into Ronald's.  " _This_ is fine," he bit off.

Potter was wrapping both arms around the sling full of baby and closing his eyes; Granger and Draco popped out of existence a moment later.

"Ready?" Ronald inquired.

"Yes," Malfoy said.

"These people will not like you," he warned.

Draco could _feel_ Lupin listening to them, even while the werewolf pretended to compose his message to Snape.  "I'm well used to people not liking me," he said.  "I can handle it; I'm not a child."

"I'm aware you're not," Ronald said lowly.  "I'm also well aware that you mouth off when you feel threatened.  Keep in mind that no one can touch you.  I'd hex anyone who tried, and whatever you may think of Harry Potter, he would, too."

Draco frowned.  "You didn't mention _him_.  Malfoy – the other one."

"I thought that part went without saying."

"He doesn't think very much of me."

"Don't be a prat," Ronald replied.  "Draco's hero-thing is almost as bad as Harry's, now.  Wands away and on our best behavior."

"Yes, master," Malfoy replied, rolling his eyes.

Ronald's expression had gone intent.  "I didn't cast _Necto fiddes_ ," he said, slowly, "and _Necto fiddes_ can't make you obey me."

Malfoy blinked.  "Yeah.  I mean – yes.  I know that."

"Good.  So long as we're clear."

Malfoy was suddenly, uncomfortably aware that they were still holding hands.  "I'm ready," he said, and before he'd taken another breath he was Elsewhere.

 

The Burrow was well-named, Malfoy thought uncharitably as he peered out over the chicken coop and levels that _weren't_ level, and the peeling shingles, and the winding way that led to the front(?) door.  A large, rusty cauldron sat in the front(?) yard and a pair of offensively pink Wellington boots with animated roses climbing up the sides sat by the door, which was cracked open.  The others had already arrived, but were waiting for them before alerting the occupants.

Malfoy's first instinct was to sneer, but the curl of his lip was arrested by the look on Ronald's face.

"It's not much," he said.

"It's… different," said Malfoy.

"…not what I was expecting," said Draco.

"Brilliant," Potter breathed, blowing out a gust of air.  That relieved smile was on his face, and he bounced the baby just a bit on his hip in what seemed to be sheer joy.  Even Lupin looked more relaxed than his usual wire-thin, panicky self, so Malfoy gave the house and grounds a second look, trying to discern what was so special.

He supposed that the listing northern side had a peculiar artistic flair to it, if one were so inclined.  The cauldron outside had all sorts of unmentionable things clinging to its outsides, as though it had been used for experiments or play, or possibly both.  The smell of eggs cooking was wafting from an open window, where a cat, or possibly a kneazle, lay sprawled out in the early morning sun.

Potter took a deep breath and headed for the front gate.

It happened so fast that Malfoy wasn't quite sure what had happened, at first.  One minute, Harry was walking towards the Burrow at a good clip, the next he was flying back and Lupin's wand was out, and _ohnoohnoohno_ –

Potter froze five centimeters from the ground, eyes squeezed shut, body curled around the infant in his arms.

Hermione let out a cry and ran towards them.  "Harry, Harry, it's all right, you're fine, you're both fine," she babbled, as Potter slowly uncurled from around the baby.

"Merlin, fuck, what was that?" Weasley babbled, reaching Potter only a second behind Granger.

Malfoy looked up to find Lupin's face white as a sheet.  "It's the wards," the older wizard said while Weasley helped a shaking Harry to his feet.  "They're rejecting the baby, Harry… or you."

"All right," Draco said, wiping his hands on the front of his trousers as though he had been the one who had nearly fallen to the dirt.  "All right, we'll go inside and, and Harry can stay here, with the baby."

"Don't you want to find out if it's Harry or the baby?" Weasley hissed.

"No," Draco replied, "I do not," and for once Malfoy and Draco were in complete agreement with one another, and wasn't that some sort of existential joke?

"Come to think of it, I think I should stay right here too," Malfoy said.  "And so should you, you idiot," he hissed to his counterpart.  "How likely is it that a Malfoy is going to convince Mrs. Weasley of anything?"

Draco blinked, as though he'd forgotten this fact, then grinned.  "Actually, I'm the perfect one to go.  She owes me a favour; she said so."

The entire party save Weasley turned to stare.

"She did," Draco went on. "And you should come, too," he said to Malfoy. "You're going to help me prove an important point."

* * *

Author's Notes:

Whew! This was a tough one.

For one thing, I have promised myself to never write flashbacks unless I need to: they're overused, and where they're used, they're most often very badly done.  However, Malora, with whose blessed help this was beta'd, insisted that the flashback was truly necessary here to give us the Ronald and Malfoy background info.  I really liked the idea of the flashback being in grey, to be 'distanced' or 'shaded' away from the present.  Let me know how that works for you; I'll probably keep playing with the format even after it's posted, until it's precisely the way I like it.  :)

Here's where I say thank you to Malora for betaing! FOR SERIOUS. And that any remaining mistakes are mine and not hers. :)

Writing from Malfoy's POV was rough because he is such a strange character; he feels so conflicted that he can sometimes seem like two different characters at once: his surface, 'Malfoy' persona, and the more empathetic persona emerging from the crisis that was his manipulation by Voldemort and his flight from the Castle.  I hope his conflicted feelings came through!

I went back through this one and did EXTENSIVE work to make it clear who was speaking.  Ugh, let's just say, "please read this chapter carefully and you should know who's speaking, and if you still don't, let me know."  Sigh.

In honor of Malora's beta, I'd like to rec her fic, _Never Say Remember_ , which holds a rightful place as a classic in the fandom.  It's a story about two Harry Potter universes crossing over (hmmm, see any similarities?  It's no wonder we're fans of one another's work).  Her original universe is gorgeous and well-realized, with Snape and Lily and Harry as its main characters.  Discussion of what it means to be a family, issues of mental illness, and love and acceptance are the central themes.  Check it out - you won't regret it.  I know for sure it's available on ff-dot-net, but it may be here on ao3 as well.  :D

As always, reviews really help me write! Let me know what you think of the chapter and where the story is going and how you liked the characters and how your day has been. ;)

-K


	18. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning for some foul language in this chapter. And, kind reader, please take note of the Author's Notes. For lo, they are pertinent.

Harry packed his things back into Hermione's endless bag while the others buzzed around him, readying themselves for travel.  He could almost _feel_ Remus's impatience to be moving once more, but Harry thought it was the appeal of separating from the Malfoys that drove his enthusiasm. 

Draco had argued that, to save time, the group ought to split into two: the Weasleys and Malfoys would proceed to the Burrow, while Harry, Hermione and Lupin continued the search for the next Horcrux.  Harry might not like Malfoy, but even he didn't want him to disobey the strictures of the geas by accidentally working against the Weasleys' best interests; and Ron had explained that _Necto fiddes_ would be easier for the Malfoys to obey if they accompanied both Weasleys, which was true enough. 

 _It isn't quite fair to allow one Ronald to go home, and to deny the other_ , Remus had contributed with a stab at his old equanimity, but Harry wondered, more than a little uneasily, why Remus was so keen to leave the Malfoys at the Burrow.

Which made him miss Professor Snape's presence all the more, which was ridiculous.  It wasn't as though Harry had been on better terms with him for long, and nearly half that time Snape been unconscious.  

"Harry," Hermione said, putting her hand on his shoulder.  "We're ready to go."

They made short work of goodbyes.  Hermione flew into arms all around, making a circle of embraces until she nearly stumbled into Malfoy, who fell back as though he were afraid of being touched.

Hermione took the insulting gesture with equanimity, and Draco, whom Harry thought might be furious on Hermione's behalf, blushed and looked the other way.

Embarrassed.  Huh. 

Ron shook his hand and the other Ron – Ronald, Harry supposed – shook it as well, looking grim.  Harry thought he wouldn't be sorry to see the back of this Ronald Weasley, who seemed to be furious with Harry whenever he clapped eyes on him.  Ronald seemed to catch wind of his trepidation; he sent Harry a wicked grin and squeezed his hand when he shook it – rather hard.

Malfoy was next, but he didn't say much of anything.  He did nod, which was more than Harry'd expected.  He'd thought Malfoy was still angry with him because of the transferred connection.

Then: Draco.

"Well, Potter," he said, "wish us luck with the Weasley matriarch.  We'll meet you later tomorrow, we'll send you the signal."

Draco had explained that a Patronus might go astray if sent to anyone who had a double, so it was decided that in twenty-four hours, one of the four of them would send a Patronus to Harry, with a familiar location as its message.  Then, Harry, Hermione and Remus would be able to Apparate to that location and the group would join together again.

"You find a Horcrux, don't do anything stupid," Draco ordered.  "You'll wait on us - you swore."

Last chance, said a voice in Harry's head; but he didn't know for what.  "Good luck… then," he said, stumbling over his last word, because it felt weird to call Draco by his given name, but weirder still to call him Malfoy when the boy he thought of as Malfoy was standing off to Harry's left.

"There's something else?" Draco inquired, carefully polite.

When Harry blinked at him in surprise, Draco smiled.

"The connection.  You feel like something's… I don't know.  Unfinished."

"Whatever it is, can we get it done, please?" Malfoy inquired, bouncing the fussing baby on his hip.  "The natives are getting restless."

"I only wanted to say goodbye to the baby," Harry said, which was true and also wasn't.  He approached Malfoy, who obligingly turned the baby to face him, as if he thought it was just as important that the baby see Harry as the other way around.  "Hey," Harry said to its wide eyes and red, angry features.  "It's going to be fine."

Draco's hand settled against the back of his neck, and Harry closed his eyes around the sense of relief that accompanied the touch.  "It is," Draco agreed, squeezing Harry's neck, then letting go.

"Okay," Harry said, feeling inexplicably better, lighter.  "Okay, we'll see you later."  He backed up until he was standing by Remus, by Hermione.  He held up the locket, which swung north.  "'Bye," he added, closed his eyes and Apparated.

When he opened them, he could still feel Draco and also Malfoy, somewhere far off, to the south of him.  A huge chunk of his remaining anxiety bled out of him like water through a sieve.  He could find them no matter what, which was... good.

Remus was eyeing him warily, so Harry smiled and held the Locket aloft.  "Ready for another jump?" he asked as the wind twisted its way north, pushing his hair into even greater disarray.

"Sure thing, Harry," Hermione agreed, with a cheerful smile.  Now that they were back on the road to finding the Horcruxes, she seemed pleased, full of purpose and energy.  He couldn't help reflecting that back at her just a bit, moon to her sun.

Harry reached towards her, and Hermione slipped her hand into his.  He reached for Remus's larger, calloused hand and closed his eyes, letting the Locket draw them towards the second Horcrux.

The first thing Draco thought of, looking up at the Burrow, was that he was supposed to visit with his own Ron that summer.  Now that he thought about it, if Harry hadn't pulled his _Obscura_ on Black, he probably would be there this instant, charming Mrs Weasley and skirting the twins.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Ron asked.  "Maybe we should just go in all at once.  Don't you think it'd go faster if we explained everything at once?" he said, tugging his sleeves down lower over his wrists.

Draco peered across the lawn and behind the fence, where Malfoy and his own Ronald were standing.  It had been decided that the two boys to whom Mrs Weasley was more likely to be well-disposed would be the first to enter: Draco because of Bill, and the debt the Weasley matriarch owed him, Ron because he was, of course, her natural son and therefore naturally welcome.  Even that much had taken some argument.  Ronald and Malfoy both looked uncomfortable even from so great a distance, and Draco could tell from the waves of defensive embarrassment coming off of Malfoy through the bond that both expected trouble, albeit for different reasons.  Malfoy was holding the baby, rocking it now and again and looking lost.

"I thought my points were clear when I made them the first time," Draco said.  "Mrs. Weasley owes me, and for my story to be credible, she has to see you first."  He rapped on the front door.

"I'm not ready!" Ron squeaked.

"For Merlin's sake, it's your _mother_ ," Draco scoffed.

"I'd like to hear you say that about _your_ mother!" Ron returned, crossing his arms.

The door creaked open on unoiled hinges to reveal Ginny Weasley wearing a pale green blouse and a loose skirt; her feet were bare.  Her features worked silently for almost a half minute before she stepped back a pace, calling, "Mum?"

Molly Weasley appeared in the doorway, going pale at the sight of the pair of them.

"Er… hullo, Mum," Ron said with a wiggle of his fingers that might kindly be termed a wave.

"Oh my goodness… in!"  And then Mrs Weasley yanked the two of them across the threshold without another word.

Draco hadn't been expecting that.  He'd expected Mrs Weasley to hug him again, or to shout at him for making it look as though her son had been kidnapped, even if she'd known the truth.  This brusqueness didn't really fit with Ron's stories or Draco's brief experience with Mrs Weasley…

When Molly hustled them into her kitchen, Draco understood the reason for her sudden anxiety.

The entire Weasley clan were assembled around the scuffed, bare-wood Weasley kitchen table.  The twins were in evidence, as well as a young man Draco guessed was be Charlie Weasley, and an older man who must have been Mr Weasley.  Fleur was there, her white-gold hair shining brightly as a veela's, and at her side was a completely-recovered Bill, who stood at the sight of Draco.  Percy Weasley, the Head Boy Draco remembered as a stuck-up ponce in need of a good thrashing, was present.  Funny, he'd thought Ron had a falling out with one of his brothers in his own world – he could've sworn it was that one.

"Well," Draco said.

"Draco Malfoy," said not a few people; but Bill was already free from the throng.  He stood in front of Draco as if he didn't know quite what to do, or say.

Draco looked into his wild features and stuck out his hand.  "Bill," he said.

Bill looked down at Draco's hand, to Ron, then back to Draco again.  For a moment, Draco thought the young man was too shocked to move, but then he surprised Draco by taking his hand and shaking it and pulling Draco towards him for a manly backslap that Draco tried hastily to imitate.  The pair exchanged the nervous grin of two people who were closer than the convention of time and place allowed.

"Saved my life, Draco Malfoy did," Bill shot over his shoulder, big grin on his face.  And then Fleur was clasping Draco to her, muttering in graceful, grateful French, and for a moment Draco thought that this one act of kindness might have saved him.

But Ginny was still staring at him, the shock on her face morphing to distrust and incredulity, the twins were elbowing one another, and Draco caught a moue of distaste on Percy Weasley's face.

"Goodness, you must be exhausted," Mrs Weasley said into the tension-filled lull.  "I'll get you some chairs, shall I?"  She proceeded to do just that, bustling about the kitchen for a cuppa and biscuits.  "Sit, Draco, dear, sit _down_ ," Mrs Weasley pressed, while one of the twins mouthed to the other _Draco dear?_   "Why, it wasn't so long ago that you were _Crucio_ 'd within an inch of your life!  I'm surprised you don't still have the trembling, the time Arthur ran afoul of the curse his right hand wouldn't quit for weeks."

Draco sat in the proffered chair quickly, worried Molly Weasley might continue in this vein if left to her own devices.  He took a biscuit so that he wouldn't have to look into her worried, expectant features… or answer.

"It was Bellatrix Lestrange," Ron contributed unexpectedly.  Maybe he was feeling the tension in the room, too.

" _Mon dieu_!" Fleur said.  " 'Ow 'orrible!"

Draco thought uncharitably that Fleur was the sort who spoke primarily French in England and primarily English in France.

Percy Weasley sniffed.  "It sounds like an outrageous story to me," he said, using a finger to push his glasses up his long nose.  "A lot like the stories young Draco used to make up at school."

Draco stared.  Partially because a young man only a handful of years his senior had referred to him as 'young Draco' and partially because even he did not make up stories about Unforgivables.  He'd been stupid, maybe, but never quite that stupid.

He hoped.

"Malfoy wouldn't do that," Ron said, but he looked as dubious as Draco himself had felt moments ago.

Molly Weasley clucked her tongue and nodded: the sun rose in the east, the moon shone at night, and Draco Malfoy was honest and true.  Draco felt a little warmed and a little humbled until he saw the expressions of frank incredulity around the rest of the table.

Fred and George laughed aloud.  "Look at that, Ronniekins!  The wannabe Death Eater has you wrapped around his little finger!"

Ron bristled.  "He's not a Death Eater, either!" he exclaimed.

"Well of course he's not," Percy exclaimed impatiently, plucking a piece of (imaginary?) fuzz off of pristine Ministry robes.  "Death Eaters don't exist."

The kitchen went as silent as the Potions lab after Snape had posed a question.  Ginny Weasley and her mother were both white, and the girl's fingers were clenched around the table's circumference.  Bill and the other grown-up Weasley boy – Charlie – were exchanging grim looks.  Arthur was blinking rapidly, as though he felt he were in some sort of surreal dream.  The twins were doing impressions of kettles ready to boil over.  But there was one thing Draco noticed about all of them: none of them looked surprised.

"…perhaps there are a few foolish men who cling to long-outdated ideals," Percy went on.  "Scattered, of course… nothing to alarm anyone…"

Ginny looked up and pierced her brother with a hateful glare.  "Like Mister Crouch," she said meanly, though Draco had no idea what she was talking about.  Hadn't Crouch been one of the judges at the Triwizard Tournament?

"Well yes, of course, _just like_ Mister Crouch's son," Percy said, as though his sister had offered up a reasonable example rather than a spiteful one.  "Someone long-imprisoned, delusional, and three-quarters mad."

"Who attacked the school, then?" one of the twins pressed.  His expression was filled with horrified fascination, as though he wanted to hear Percy's rationale out of sheer scientific curiosity.

Percy looked a little uncomfortable for a moment.  Perhaps the attack on the school stretched the limits of even his denial… but his expression firmed almost immediately.  "A tragedy, surely, that we have come to such divisive times, when we see even a school full of children the victim of such terrible pranks."

"Pranks?" the second twin blurted, bright red.

"Pranks?" the first shouted.

"Boys," Arthur Weasley said.  He had thumb and forefinger at either temple, and was hiding his eyes.  Draco thought his voice sounded exhausted.

"You don't believe in Death Eaters?" the second twin said, eyes narrowing.

" _Fred_ ," Arthur said.

"I'll _show_ you one," Fred said, and Draco felt arms yanking him backward, a stinging, slashing hex along his left arm.  His sleeve split to expose the Dark Mark to the entire Weasley clan.

Ron was out of his chair in an eyeblink, seat tipping over as he slid backward, trying to keep both of the twins in his eye, wand already in his right hand.  "What do you think you're _doing_?" he hollered.

"Malfoy's a Death Eater, his whole family's Death Eaters and always has been," the hexing twin said to Percy, wand still trained on Draco, "from his pox-ridden grandfather to his ugly, stuck-up mother."

"Fred!  George!  Wands away!" Mr Weasley shouted, planting his hands on the table before him and leaning forward.

Part of Draco was aware of the thin stream of blood trailing down his arm – a slight, stinging pain – the wash of cold shame that revealing or even seeing the Mark caused to shoot through him, but even that was swiftly subsumed in rage.  " _What did you say about my mother_?" he asked, and it was like someone else was talking, and from very far away.  He watched his wand raise, his hand shaking with fury.

"Take it back, Fred," Ron said.  "Take back what you said about his family."

Now even Ginny was staring at Ron as though he'd grown antlers, and the twins goggled.

"I – I thought we were better," Ron blurted, "I thought we weren't like –"

"We're not," Arthur Weasley said firmly.  "Boys – wands away!"

Fred and George slowly lowered their wands.  Draco didn't lower his.

They were all surprised when Percy emitted a low chuckle.  "So this is your proof?  You expect me to believe a half-grown braggart like Draco Malfoy is part of some secret, dark cult –"

"Hey!" Draco growled, then realized just what he was objecting to.  He should be encouraging the idea that he couldn't possibly be part of a secret, dark cult.  He quickly pocketed his wand.

"Well, perhaps you are right in that it was Draco Malfoy and his friends who caused so much damage at the school," Percy mused, nodding to himself.  "Yes; yes, that fits, with Mister Malfoy's previous deviant behavior, and given his… tattoo… it's clear he styles himself one of these so-called 'Death Eaters'… yes, it makes sense... imagine, a teenaged gang pulling the wool over the eyes of the entire Wizarding World..."

Draco shot Ron a panicked glance.  He wasn't sure he liked where this was going.

"I'll make the Ministry call, myself," Percy said.  "It'll mean more coming from the Assistant to the Minister for Magic," he added importantly.  "They're getting a bit tired of all these nonsense calls… kneazles in the shrubbery and Boggarts under the bed… but I'll set them straight…"

"Percy," Mrs Weasley said, "please, don't."

There was something desperate and intent in her voice that pricked Draco's ears.  Ron reached out and squeezed his mother's hand.

"Don't?" Percy echoed, staring around the kitchen with superior disbelief, as though he could not believe he had been raised in such deplorable conditions.  "This is just the problem with your Order nonsense… taking the law into your own hands… thinking it's up to you if a criminal act is punished!  Why, the way you're talking, it seems like you think we don't need a Minister for Magic or a Wizengamot at all!"

"He let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts," Mr Weasley said.  "Let Percy make the call."

"Arthur!" Mrs Weasley exclaimed.

"Let him make the call," Arthur repeated, sounding weary.

An incredulous smile flashed across Percy's face, only to disappear into self-satisfaction.  "I knew you'd see sense.  We'll get this boy to the Ministry and he'll tell us everything we need to know about his little gang.  Then you'll all see what a farce it's been."  He moved to the living room.

Draco cast about for escape routes.  He could run for the front door, but he was surrounded by Weasleys after having been dragged in as – ostensibly – a guest.  He saw a back door he could dash for, but Percy Weasley was in his path, firecalling the Ministry.  Even if he escaped, there was little chance Ron would be willing to fight his way out, given the circumstances.

Which left persuasion.

"Ginevra," Draco said, "look outside, if you please."

Ginny glared at him, but after an encouraging nod from her mother, moved to stand at the kitchen window that looked out across the chicken coop and into the field beyond.  Draco watched her back stiffen and knew she'd caught sight of their doubles, standing just beyond the wards, and the baby in Malfoy's arms.

She turned to face them, crossing arms over her chest and jutting her chin forward – looking every bit Ronald Weasley's sister when she did.  She struggled with words for a moment, then blurted, "so who are you?"

Draco felt a leap of triumph somewhere in his gut.  _Good, Gin, I always knew you were a clever one._   "The point is, I didn't let any Death Eaters into Hogwarts.  The Order knows that there are two of us, and they know which is which.  Just so quickly as you did."

Ginny looked confused, and thumbed the window behind her.  "So they'll just arrest that one, yeah?"

It was hard to fault her logic.

"It's more complicated than that, Gin," Ron broke in.  "They threatened to kill his Mum if he didn't.  He was coerced.  If we give him to the Ministry now, he could be locked up for good."

"If the Order knows about the two of you," Arthur contributed, "you don't have to worry.  The Order's tapped the Floo.  They'll intercept the call, take it for Percy.  That's what I was counting on."

"The Order's set Moody on Malfoy," Ron said.  "Not much better."

"Here's where I'm going to have to agree with Percival, Ron," Arthur said.  "You can't always take matters into your own hands.  Moody will know what to do with him."

"And what about the baby?" Ginny demanded.

"Baby?" Mrs Weasley and Fleur joined her at the window.

Ron slapped his hand to his forehead.  "That's why we're here.  We need help but we can't get the baby through the wards.  We were hoping you could lower them – just for a mo'."

"Where'd you happen on a _baby_?" Mrs Weasley demanded.  "Ginny, get the old bottles from the top shelf in the kitchen, there's a dear.  Bill, there are some rags we could use for diapers in the laundry… and teach Draco-dear the spell for milk if you will, Charlie.  Quickly now."

"Father, the Ministry wants to speak with you directly," Percy said from the living room.

Arthur rose and walked slowly into the living room.  Draco could hear him saying something about taking their time.  Meanwhile, Mrs Weasley packed a large, wicker basket with all of the things her children handed her.  Draco had the bad feeling that this meant they wouldn't be leaving the baby with her anytime soon.

"What's all this about a baby?" Percy inquired, striding back into the kitchen.

"See for yourself," George said, gesturing towards the kitchen window.

When Percy leaned out the window to see, his face went white, then hectic spots of colour appeared on his cheeks.  "What is this, another prank?" he demanded.

"It's not a _prank_ ," Ron said, clearly nearing the limits of his patience, while the twins laughed at Percy's discomfort in the background.  "The baby won't pass through the wards.  We were hoping Mum and Dad could lower them –"

"They can't," Charlie said, looking up from where he was demonstrating the spell to produce milk for the baby, pointing his wand at the sanitized bottles.  "One of the wards is a Memory one.  It means that no one can remember where we are, unless they're a member of the family, or the Order."

"Death Eaters have been hanging about the village all week," Bill added, Fleur nodding.  "We think they've found some clues that lead them to Ottery St Catchpole, but they still can't find the house.  The wards are the only things that stand between us and attack.  That's why we're all here - Mum and Dad wanted to talk about their options -"

"You've all lost your minds," Percy said, calmly.  "And I'm going to show you."  He stood and walked from the room.

"Show us," Fred scoffed, rolling his eyes.

" _How_ is he going to show us?" George added.

Ginny gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.  "By dropping the wards," she said, and took off at a run.

Draco and Ron and most of the Weasleys flew to their feet and chased after Ginny, not a lot of them shouting, " _No, Perce, no!_ " and Draco was pretty sure he thought it'd be funny if it weren't all so horrible.  They all fell over one another getting outside the cottage, but by then it was too late; a fitful flickering all around the house and grounds, like a ball of lightning, and then nothing.

Mrs Weasley stumbled against her husband, so white he was sure she was going to pass out, but then it was, "wands out, children," and the Weasleys, Fleur, and Draco spread out around the Burrow to the counterpoint of chickens clucking.

His own Ronald and the other Draco Malfoy were moving forward with the squalling baby; Draco realized they had to believe it was 'mission accomplished', the wards lowered.  He shouted for them to advance, but it was Ginny who broke free of the crowd, wand out, and began herding the two back to the larger group.  Draco could feel fright and grim determination flavouring his counterpart's thoughts.

At that moment, two figures Apparated onto the grounds, one stocky, older wizard that Draco recognized an instant later as Mad-Eye Moody, and a nameless Junior Auror – and, likely, Junior member of the Order of the Phoenix.  Ginny walked right past them, ignoring their raised wands and pointed out the perimeter of the Burrow's lands, still dragging Ronald and Malfoy in her wake.

She must have explained the situation as well as time allowed, because the terror in the sea of his counterpart's mind spiked alarmingly.  Malfoy dashed to Draco's side and quickly sidled behind him.  "Hope you're ready to fight, hero," he hissed in Draco's ear.  "Because I'm not.  I'm holding a baby," he tacked on, as though anyone could've missed it.  The baby was past irritable and on to a Howler-style wail with occasional hiccoughs and the characteristic rasping noise of a sore throat.

"You all still truly believe that a special cadre of Dark wizards is after you?" Percy called from across the lawn while Moody and Arthur attempted to restore the fallen wards.

"Maybe he's right," George said, voice hushed.  "Maybe they were in Ottery St Catchpole because –"

The first Death Eater Apparated onto the grounds, aiming his wand at Arthur.

"Dad!" and "Arthur!" the family cried, and five curses hit the unfortunate Death Eater across the shoulderblades, head, legs, and arse, along with Moody's hit to the bollocks.  What happened to him was not easy to describe… or look at.

Two Death Eaters Apparated then, to the east and west of the house and moved to flank the house.  Fred and George fanned out to counter them.  "Hey, if they keep sending them one or two at a time…" George said.

Six more Death Eaters Apparated north of the Burrow.

" _Stop talking, George!_ " Fred shouted.

Draco, remembering the Battle of Hogwarts, decided to stick with Ginny.  She seemed to accept him at her side, which was enough for him; he already trusted her, after all, even if it was at Harry's orders.  She shouted out a Bat-Bogey hex at his side, while he countered with _Serpensortia_.  She cast _Nix_ , he cast _Web Templar_.  She cast _Confundus_ , he cast _Obliviate_.

"What are you doing?" she shouted, pressing her back to his as she ducked.  "Are you _matching_ me?  This isn't a game!"

"Anything you can do, I can do better," he replied.  "Come on, Ginevra, where's your sense of _competitive_ _spirit_?"

Ginny shouted something about where Draco could stuff his competitive spirit, ducking and pushing down on the top of his head so that they both avoided the hex screaming their way.  " _Furnunculus!_ "

Draco cast, and the Death Eater fell to his knees, vomiting slugs, clawing at his face, and Ginny barked a triumphant laugh.

"Eurgh, mate, I remember that one," his own Ronald said, darkly.  He took hold of Draco's and his sister's collars and dragged them behind the huge cauldron in the front yard.

Draco yanked his collar free and turned to glare.  "We don't need help.  Look after Malfoy and the baby… he seems determined not to lift his wand."

"Bill's got them," Ronald returned, shooting a curse around the cauldron.  "Mr and Mrs Weasley say we should go to Shell Cottage.  Who knows how many more of these buggers are going to show?"

"Mr and Mrs…?" said Gin, turning.  "Oh, Merlin's saggy… it's not my brother, it's the other one!"

"Language, Miss Weasley," Ronald said with a grin.

The grin froze, then fell off his features as he toppled backwards.

" _Ron!_ " Draco shouted.

Ginny stood and fired behind them, exchanging hexes with the Death Eater who'd targeted her brother.  Draco knew better than to check on Ronald while curses were flying over their heads, but he could see the other boy's fixed expression as he stared up at the sky.  Draco felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, and a wave of terror rose to climb over his head.

Wait – _that wasn't his._   He whipped around to see Malfoy clutching the baby to himself, Bill standing guard, their backs against the walls of the Burrow.  Draco felt determination crystallize in the other boy, and knew he was about to do something phenomenally stupid.

Sure enough, Malfoy broke for the front door to the Burrow and dashed inside.  Draco watched until the door slammed shut with a feeling of overwhelming relief.  That was one person taken care of; but everywhere he looked he could see more who needed him: Ginny, shouting abuse at their attackers and hurling curses faster than he'd ever seen her do before, even during the Battle at Hogwarts; Bill, still cornered against the Burrow; Charlie and Fleur, trying to make for Bill, but blocked by a unit of talented Death Eaters.  Moody and Mr and Mrs Weasley seemed to be more than holding their own; Percy was nowhere in sight.  More than anything, Draco wanted to wrap his arms around Ronald and Apparate free of the battlefield, but he knew the other boy wouldn't thank him.  Maybe he could get the other Weasleys to abandon the fight – go to this Shell Cottage –

Draco saw Ron hit with an _Incarcerus_ and leapt to counter it from an awkward angle, and suddenly he knew just what he was to do.  He ran to the Burrow and used _Levicorpus_ to push his feet up to the roof.  From here, he could see the entire battle, and could lend aid wherever he was needed.  He blocked two curses heading for Fred and George, who were laughing madly as they fought, like two warriors out of a tale, and _Levicorpus_ 'd Fleur out of the way of a Stunner.

A handful of new Death Eaters Apparated onto the scene, and their arrival turned the tide from _holding their own_ to a rout.  Mrs Weasley shouted _Go!_ with the aid of an amplification charm.  The Death Eater Bill was dueling sent a curse his way, and Draco wasn't sure if it had hit or not when Bill Disapparated.  Charlie and Fleur were next, which Draco guessed made sense; they'd been battling to reach Bill, who had gone.  Mr Weasley was next, followed quickly by Ron.  That left the twins, who looked like they were having too much fun fighting the Death Eaters to quit, Ginny, who appeared to be defending their wilder moves and protecting Ronald, and Malfoy, somewhere in the house below him.

Apparition wasn't Draco's strong point, and he suspected that was at least in part due to terror.  He didn't like the idea of people popping from place to place.  He was just leaning forward to squint at a place where a Death Eater had been standing a moment ago when he realized that the missing Death Eater was standing beside him.  He whipped around, wand hand extended.

"Come now, Draco," said his father's voice, "if I had wanted to kill you just now, you'd be dead."

Draco swayed on the spot, wand hand dropping.  "F-F-Father," he stammered.  "It's you!"

"Don't stammer, Draco.  It's unattractive.  As is making self-evident statements."

"Yes, Father," Draco blurted automatically, then winced.

"I can tell see you're pleased to see me," the man went on.

"I…" Draco's eyes flickered over to the Battle.  "…of course I am."

"Still no subtlety," Lucius said flatly.  "You haven't changed since I last clapped eyes on you.  It's no wonder you've fallen in with Gryffindors."

"No, Father, I've only been –"

"Do not embarrass us both any further," Lucius said.  "Wand forth."

Draco felt a combination of fear and nausea clutch at his stomach.  _Wand forth_ was his father's training mantra; he remembered it very well, having heard it over and over on the practice field on the Manor grounds.  "I won't hex you," he said, stubbornly, refusing to raise his wand.

"Don't be any more foolish than you can help, Draco Lucius Malfoy!" his father shouted.  "Or have your new friends shaken all the sense I instilled in you straight out of your head?  Draw!"  His father's face in the Death Eater mask tilted slightly to the battle below, and Draco finally understood.  He drew his wand and cast a Stinging Hex just past his father's left shoulder.

Lucius did not do something so vulgar as nod in approbation, but something in the set of his shoulders let Draco know he was right.  He shot a hex cleanly between Draco's ankles.  They circled one another, shooting the occasional hex, aiming for one another's shields.  Of course, they were one stumble from permanently maiming one another, but Draco's heart inside his chest soared:

His father was, despite all sense, all evidence to the contrary, _on his side._

"Listen to me carefully, Draco," Lucius said as they danced around one another.  "Severus has apprised me of your situation, and there are others who will stand with you when the time comes.  What you are looking for is in the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange.  The other, your mother must obtain.  Fire an Unforgivable."

"What?" Draco shouted.

"If you don't have the stomach –" Lucius growled, lunging for him.

" _Imperio!_ "  Draco felt his father accept him within his own mental shields; it was like walking through a field of razor-wire and broken glass.

 _Tell me I must go,_ his father said, voice ringing around him.

 _Go?_   Draco's control slipped away, and for a moment he saw his father behind the bars in Azkaban, _Draco, I must go now,_ felt his grandfather's wand as it slid through his fingers and into his father's trembling hand, saw himself standing at his father's place at the Manor, where he had called for Harry and Harry had not come.  He saw his father's sunken eyes, that pride before him now stamped, defeated, undone, and Draco reeled.

 _What – what is this?  Who are you?_ Lucius demanded.

Draco shook himself free of the dark memory.  "Go!" he ordered.  "Leave immediately!"

Lucius Apparated, and Draco cut the ties of the Imperius Curse with a hasty wave of his wand.  There was no time to waste in recovery; Ron was waving his wand in the air, casting what Draco thought of as _Triwizard Sparks_ , and pointing to the Burrow.  Draco scanned the yard to find that everyone else had abandoned the field; then he climbed into a top storey window with the aid of _Levicorpus._

Draco found himself in a room full of pink and white and purple frills – Gin's room, he'd tease the daylights out of her, later – and ran down the stairs before yanking himself flat against the wall.

Four Death Eaters were clustered around Draco Malfoy, who still clutched the baby to his chest, eyes wide and heart thumping… this close, Malfoy's horror and fear were so thick in the air that Draco would have come to a halt of his own volition even if the Death Eaters hadn't been crowded around the other boy like sharks tasting blood in the water.  The baby screeched up a storm until one of the Death Eaters cast _Silencio._

"Draco Malfoy and a baby, eh?" a stout, plump one said.  "Did you knock up a pureblooded witch?  Do you think Daddy'd be proud?"

"Or d'you suppose it was a Mudblood bitch?" a tall, thin figure at his side inquired.

"It's a pureblood!" Malfoy shouted, clutching the baby closer.  "Pure as the driven fucking snow!"

Draco could see Ron coming in through the open side-door, but the quartet of Death Eaters separated them.

"Sounds like the Lady doth protest too much," the tall one went on.  "I think it is halfblood filth.  What do you think, Amy?"

"I think we should dash it against a stone, just in case," said a third Death Eater.

"You're always so hasty, Reginald," said 'Amy', the stout wizard.  "Pureblood babies are a national treasure.  Sometimes I think you don't even like children."

Draco crept close enough to catch Malfoy's eye, but the other boy was so close to panic that he didn't even seem to be looking for an escape anymore, frozen like a charmed snake.

Ron was more attentive.  He found Draco's gaze and nodded, jerking his head towards the Death Eaters.  Something – maybe the link – finally alerted Malfoy to Draco's presence, and he raised his head.  Draco raised his wand in demonstration, but Malfoy sent him a _NO_ so loud it crashed through his head, leaving afterimage/echoes dancing around his brain.

Draco had no time to wonder why not.  He raised his own wand and bounced it gently, like a conductor readying the viols.  He hoped Ron was counting to three like he was, or they were in some trouble.

Two of the Death Eaters went down under their simultaneous _Stupefy_ charms, and a beat later, a third toppled.  Malfoy removed a frying pan from the wall behind him and clobbered the stout wizard three or four times in a row.

The four made an untidy heap in the kitchen.  Ginny emerged from a position at the back door, wand still out.  "I never know if it's _on_ three, or count to three and _then_ go," she said.

"Gin!" Ron exclaimed, taking her in his arms and swinging her about.

"Easy, Ron… we don't know if there's anybody else around," Ginny said, her eyes scanning their kitchen as though she expected a Death Eater to pop out of one of the kitchen cupboards at any time.  Draco didn't blame her one jot.

The baby had finally ceased crying, but it had gone cold and pale.  Draco wondered if it could tell how horrified its caretaker had become.  Draco let Malfoy watch his hand approaching, then placed it on the other boy's shoulder.  "Hey," he said, ducking to catch his own grey eyes, wide with fear.  "You're all right.  You're both all right."

"Of course we are," he snapped, but Draco noted the thin screech of terror was still thrumming through the link, a dissonant note.

"Where's Ronald?" Draco asked, turning from his double but keeping his hand resting against his shoulder.

Ginny's skin looked even paler beneath her freckles.  "He's out back.  I stuffed him behind mum's butterfly bushes."

"We've got to make for Shell Cottage," Draco said.  "Who can Apparate?"

Ginny's lips firmed.  "I'm not supposed to know how, but Fred and George taught me ages ago."

"They did?" Ron exclaimed.  "Never taught me!"

"I can as well, but I've never been," Draco said.  "If you Apparate me after Ronald, I could come back to take Malfoy and you could take Ron.  We can only hope they've Firecalled Pomfrey or someone from the Order."

Ginny tilted her head to one side, then walked up to Malfoy and opened her arms.  "Give me the baby," she said.  "I can take him at the same time."

A spike of alarm shot through the link.

Ginny rolled her eyes.  "I used to look after our neighbor's kids all the time," she said.  "They were this little.  Come on, now, Malfoy, you know he needs to be looked after."

Slowly, Malfoy's arms unclenched.  The baby gladly reached for Ginevra, who picked him up with an alacrity Draco could admire, slinging Molly's basket over the same arm.  She exited the Burrow and moved towards a hedge of three large bushes, with butterfly-shaped leaves opening and closing in the noontime light.  Then, she Disapparated.

A few minutes later, Ginevra had not yet returned.  The three boys had their back to the kitchen wall, Ron covering one entrance, Draco covering the other.

"You can remove your hand, now," Malfoy said.

Draco realized he was still gripping his double's lower arm.  "Sorry."

Malfoy only stared, blinking, then ducked his head.  Draco was at a loss as to how to interpret the emotions jangling through his double's mind.

Ginny returned, grabbed Draco's arm without a word, and Apparated again.

When Draco opened his eyes and looked around, and breathed in, he gasped.  Shell Cottage was a beautiful white summer home on a vast stretch of beach.  He knew this place, knew it in his bones.  It was just like the cottage he'd spent the summer in, that year before Hogwarts started.  It was probably even in Cornwall, judging from the white rocks and the crashing sea.  The sea covered a multitude of sins; Draco could not hear even the sussurus of conversation emitting from Shell Cottage's dark windows, and the dozens of tracks that led up to the cottage's door would soon be blown away in the wind.  Ginny entered the house while Draco waited, and emerged sans-child and basket of supplies.

"Do you know it, now?" Ginny asked, staring into his features.  "Well enough to find it?"

"Yes, Ginevra, of course," he said.  "I'd know it anywhere."

Ginny stared at him, hard.  "Let's get the others, then."

Together they Apparated back to the Burrow, where Ron and Malfoy looked up with naked hope on their faces.  Malfoy's features were red, and his fists were clenched; Draco wondered what Ron could have said to provoke him.

"Come on," Draco said gently, taking Malfoy's hand.  "Let's go."

When they Apparated to Shell Cottage, Malfoy stumbled forward.  "It looks just like –"

"I know," Draco said, and turned to meet his double's dark eyes.  They were full of a quiet joy he'd seldom seen on the other boy's face.  "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Malfoy nodded, and moved towards the cottage.  "Let's face the music, shall we?"

Together, the four made for Shell Cottage, opened the door and went inside.

* * *

A/N:

So, this chapter underwent the most revision of any so far.  I actually removed a flashback.  I think, after the successful flashback of last chapter, I got a little flashback-happy.  And boy, changing the 'Ron's to 'Ronald's &c - I don't think I quite had the hang of it, yet.  If you do still want to see the flashback in question, it's in the ff-dot-net version of the story.

So: a battle scene!  Meeting of the Dracos and the Weasleys!  The parting of the company!  Percy's madness!  Lucius!  Ronald injured!  A lot happened in this chapter.  So, if you are moved to give feedback, I hope you will comment on everything that struck you.  :)

Here's where I remind people that this story DOES have pairings, as discussed in the tags.  Don't you worry, though: said pairings will not eat plot.  They will shift into and out of focus as plot demands, and sometimes they will cause people to act in certain ways that may _move_ plot, but romance will ALWAYS be secondary to plot. Romance will be seated in the back of the car, and we will not allow her to become a backseat driver.  ;)

Could this romance be slash?  Could it be het?  Yes to both - just like real life, guys.  If either of those makes you gasp in horror, how'd you make it through a story whose main theme is tolerance, anyhow?  (SoS)  Hmm.  In any case, if it isn't your 'ship, I swear it's gonna sail by and you're barely going to notice it.  As Plot happens.  

Love you all and forever,

-K

 


	19. Spare

"There he is," Mad-Eye exclaimed, the moment Draco stepped through the door, his counterpart on his heels.  The old ex-Auror's magical eye swung from one Draco to the other as he reached out to snag both boys' collars and drag them inside.  The cottage door slammed closed with a quick non-verbal when he glared at it.  "You are wanted for the murder of Albus Dumbledore, boy."

Draco peered past Mad-Eye.  "You can examine my wand if you want.  Cast _Priori Incantatem_."  Bill was sprawled out on the floor, and Fleur was bandaging his arm, quietly clucking over the wound.  Fred and George were shouting at each other while Charlie looked on; after a moment of tuning in, Draco realized they were reenacting their more glorious triumphs at the battle.  Of Mr and Mrs Weasley or his own Ronald, there was no sign.

"Budge up!" came Ginny's voice from behind the door.  Draco shifted forward to allow her and Ron entry, but Moody blocked their way.  "Professor," Ginny said to Mad-Eye, then winced.  "I mean, er… they aren't exactly going anywhere, are they?"

Moody waved his wand and muttered something under his breath.  Draco was pretty sure it was something to _ensure_ they weren't going anyplace, because it felt like a chain had looped around his ribcage.

Ron cast about, then frowned.  "Where's Perce?"

Percy Weasley's name seemed to resonate around the room, leaving the entire cottage abruptly silent.  Bill and Fleur looked up, Bill's left arm now covered with white gauze tucked neatly in place.  Fred and George's waving arms slowed, then froze, and Charlie Weasley's expression went as flat as the closed door.

Ron blinked a few times and scanned the room again, as if he might have missed an entire brother the first go around.  Moody clapped his paw to Ron's shoulder, and shook his head.

Ginny went white.  "Is he… is he d-dead?" she stammered.

Charlie went to them, taking his younger sister in his arms.  "No; no," he said.  "Or… we don't know," he added, making sympathetic eye contact with Ron over the top of Ginny's trembling head.  "He's gone."

One of the twins spoke up.  "You don't suppose… he knew what would happen?  That he – lowered the wards on purpose?"

"Yeah," said the other.  "Even Perce isn't normally that slow."

Draco saw Bill's features close off, and saw Fleur draw closer to him, place her hand carefully on his knee, like she was afraid he might shatter if she pressed.

" _Constant vigilance!_ " Moody barked, and the younger people in the room all jumped.  "We can't rule it out.  If your brother tries to contact you – _any of you_ – you must let an Order member know, immediately."

"We always knew he was different to the rest of the family," one twin said,

"…but we didn't think…" the other trailed off.  They eyed each other mournfully.

Draco was half-convinced that Ron would stand up for his brother the way Ronald had for him; but this world's Ron just looked angry, and lost.

"Where is Ronald?" Draco said, stepping forward.  He eyed the grizzled old Auror, but the man seemed willing to let him pass.  "Is he all right?"

Another ominous silence greeted Draco's words.  He felt cold all over.  "He – he did wake up," he said.  His voice sounded shriller than he'd expected.

Draco felt fingers press to his shoulder; he looked up to find Bill gazing at him with a pinched expression.  Draco's eyes traced the faint scars on the other man's face for a moment.  Even with his best efforts, Bill hadn't gone entirely unmarked.

"'E is in our bedroom," Fleur said at Bill's side.  "Molly and Arthur are with 'im, and Madame Pomfrey.  But there is leetle change," she said in a low, soothing voice.  She looked up to meet her husband's eyes.  "I will take you to him," she added.

Fleur skirted around the circular fireplace that rose up from the center of the room, then led the way to a hallway on the seaward side of the house; Draco followed.  As they moved to pass the twins, one boy raised a hand up to block Fleur's way.

"You're going to let _Death Eaters_ in to see Ron?" he rasped.  "Haven't they done enough?"

"George," Fleur said – and for a moment, Draco marveled at the way her tongue curled around the name, and also – _Death Eaters_ , plural? – he hadn't realized that Malfoy was right behind him – "Can you not see when others are grieving?"  She shot George a quick, assessing glance.  "But if it worries you, then of course you must come along."

She eyed the arm before her in a way that reminded Draco sharply of Narcissa, and George dropped it as though she'd cast a nonverbal Stinging Hex.  He followed readily enough though, trailing behind Malfoy.

The little procession made its way down a short hallway studded with circular windows on the sea-side, and doorways along the other: powder room, closet, bedroom.  Draco could hear the sound of hushed voices before they entered.

Mr Weasley stood at the door, face white as milk.  "Come in, come in," he said, "but be quiet, please.  Pomfrey is working."  Fleur leaned towards Mr Weasley to clasp his shoulder and whisper into his ear; then, she wove through the press of the younger boys to slip back to her husband.

Draco's heart leapt when he saw that Madame Pomfrey was indeed in the room, standing at the foot of a large bed with a dark red throw cast over it, incanting under her breath, wand weaving the air.  Mrs Weasley sat in a rocking chair under one of the cottage's many circular windows, the baby in her arms.  The baby was once again asleep, although its red cheeks and wet lashes told Draco that this was a recent development.  The entire room was silent, breathless, watching Pomfrey.

Then, Madame Pomfrey's shoulders slumped and she moved aside, revealing most of the bed that dominated the room.  Draco's heart leapt up into his throat, and he took a few steps forward before he quite knew what he was doing.

Ronald lay, face up, limbs carelessly arranged, as though he had dropped from the sky to land on the bed any which-way.  Something about the way he lay – the silence or stillness of it, or else that careless posture – made it immediately clear that he was not peacefully sleeping, but comatose.  Unreachable.  Someone had thoughtfully closed his eyes, but Draco could still see the other boy staring through him whenever he blinked.  Ronald's face was cream white – his lips were white – his nail beds and the crease between his eye and nose was a blue that made him look long-dead.

" _Oh, Merlin_ ," he heard a moan behind him.  He turned to Malfoy, lips parted to say some stupid, comforting thing, but he froze when he caught sight of the other boy.  Malfoy looked as though he ought to be laid out beside Ronald.  His eyes were wide with horror, his face was white, and Draco could feel the panic rising in the other boy.

He pushed down his own looming dread.  "It's okay.  Madam Pomfrey'll fix it," Draco said, firmly, looking up at the older witch.

Madam Pomfrey's hands twitched at her sides before going loose again.

Mrs Weasley stood, bouncing the baby in her arms.  "Madam Pomfrey?" she said.

The other witch swept at her cheeks with both hands, wiping the moisture onto her apron, then turning to Mrs Weasley with would-be calm.  "I cannot… this is beyond my skill.  I don't _recognize_ the curse.  I haven't seen it's like.  It's new, or else very old."

Arthur shook his head.  "I haven't seen anything like it at the Ministry, either.  Strange new curses, you hear things, working where I do.  But nothing about a spell that mimics Draught of the Living Death."

"That was just what I thought!" Pomfrey exclaimed.  "That it might be a poison rather than a curse.  But Ginevra specifically said that she saw a curse hit the young man from behind…"

The room fell silent.

"Snape would know," Malfoy said.

Draco turned to stare.  Talk about ways to silence a room; the entire bedroom had gone quiet as a tomb.  Which was not a simile Draco wanted to think about, with Ronald looking like he did.

"Well, you _know_ he could," Malfoy blurted, bright splashes of color blooming on his cheeks.  "He could figure this out, easy, he always ran circles around you lot."

"Clearly," Arthur Weasley said, dragging a weary hand down his face.

It took Draco longer than it should have to realize that everyone in the room still thought Severus Snape was a loyal Death Eater.  He held his tongue; it was one thing for Harry, Hermione and Ron to know about Snape.  It was another for everyone in this room to know.  He thought Mrs Weasley could be trusted, weirdly, and of course Madam Pomfrey; but he couldn't help but think that Mr Weasley might tell someone else in a very well-meaning but not very well-reasoned way, and George –

"Snape's a traitor!" Malfoy shouted, voice squeaking a bit at the end, emotions jangling and discordant, full of razor-sharp edges.  "You're all such fools, such _blind fools_ ," he said, and the burgeoning panic in his mind made Draco blanch; surely no one could _be_ that frantic and remain coherent.  "He only killed Dumbledore _so I wouldn't have to_ , h-he threatened my family, of _course_ I wanted to be able to do it, but in the end I'm just a _coward_ , so I _couldn't_ ," he went on, words tripping over each other.  "But Snape made an Unbreakable Vow, to protect me, to help me if I failed, because my mother begged and cried, because that's what she _does_ , she can make anyone do _anything_ ," he said, breathless now.  "But if we call him, he'll save Ronald's life, because that's what _he does_ , or are you all so used to thinking _Gryffindor, good; Slytherin, evil_ , that you're unwilling to take the chance?"  And he stood there, breath huffing, fists clenched, scanning the room with a heartbreaking combination of desperation and defiance.

"We cannot take the chance," said Mad-Eye from the doorway.  Draco hadn't even heard him approach.  "We can't pin the hopes of saving one boy on a known Death Eater and murderer, not when it would risk the lives of everyone here."

Draco could _feel_ Malfoy's mind whir, facts sliding into place like the tumblers of a lock.  "Right.  Of course you're right," he said, nodding decisively.  "We'll Apparate away.  Anyplace else.  Snape could meet us there.  No one else has to be in danger," he added, fierce.  "Draco and I can go," he said, gripping Draco's upper arm, tight enough to bruise.  "I understand," he added suddenly, "being afraid.  You don't have to risk yourselves."

Draco put his own hand atop his counterpart's and squeezed, but the other boy didn't seem to notice it, so focussed he was on Moody's answer.

"You aren't to leave this place, Malfoy," Mad-Eye said.  His focus widened to include Draco.  "Either of you.  You're bloody well under arrest."

Malfoy stared at him, and Draco felt his counterpart's mind go worryingly empty.

"Besides, you could lead Snape right back here," George said, but he seemed as though he were asking rather than telling.

Malfoy jolted like he'd been Ennervated. Draco could _feel_ his rage drawing back like the pull of the tide before a tsunami.

"Well," Malfoy said.  "You lot don't care, do you?  You've got a _spare._ "

George snapped back like Malfoy'd punched him.  "That's not –"

"You lot couldn't give a fig, could you?" Malfoy spat.  "He isn't _yours_ , he doesn't matter, does he?  He's not worth the _risk_ , is he?"

"Draco," Draco said, quiet.  "That's enough."

Mrs Weasley began sobbing, suddenly, into the silence that Malfoy left behind.

"Fuck," Malfoy swore.  "Fuck it, and _fuck you all_ ," he swore, whirling on Draco.  "Don't think I don't feel it, your _concern_ , your _worry_ I'm fucking it all up for you!  Turn it where it belongs, why don't you?" he shouted, swinging his arm to the bed where Ronald lay, quiescent.  "Or don't you care, either?  Is he or isn't he really your best friend?  Is he or isn't he the only reason you didn't end up _just.  Like.  Me_?" he snarled.

Draco stared into his own stormy eyes, _willing himself to speak_ , to find the right thing and say it, but he didn't know, didn't know what it was that could make this okay –

Malfoy made a sound like a boiling kettle, exasperation and despair flooding through the link in equal measure, and stormed from the room –  " _Out of my way_ ," he hissed, and the crowd immediately parted around the doorway to allow him through.  Moody snorted, and followed.

Draco realized there were tears standing in his eyes only when one wet his cheek.  "Oh," he said, sweeping it away.  "Oh, Merlin.  I'm sorry, Mrs Weasley, he didn't mean it.  I _know_ he didn't," he said.

"Shut it," George said.  "Stop being so _nice_ , Malfoy."

"Okay.  Sorry," Draco repeated, taking a shaky breath.

George stared, and Draco lifted his head, staring back.  Suddenly, George's expression shifted from distrust to something else entirely, something wary and almost afraid.

"It's all right, Draco, dear," Mrs Weasley was saying, wiping under her eyes.  "I know you didn't mean it."

 _Me?  I didn't?_ Draco thought.

"I must be getting back to Hogwarts," Madam Pomfrey said.  She eyed Draco.  "Two of you explains a lot, Mister Malfoy."

"Yes," Draco said.  He wasn't sure what else to say.  He felt as though his entire world had been picked up by some giant hand and rattled.

"You're the one who saved Bill Weasley's life," she added, eyeing him.

Draco shrugged.

"Well," she said, straightening skirts that didn't need straightening, turning to address the room as a whole.  "I will keep doing research, of course, and let you know immediately if I find anything."

Mrs Weasley nodded, disconsolate, and Arthur moved to shake Pomfrey's hand.  "Thank you so much, Poppy," he said, features drawn into grim lines.  "We're always grateful for your assistance."

"Of course; of course," she said, patting the hand which still gripped her own.  "You'll be the first to know when I learn anything new."  She left the room in a flurry of skirts and determination.

Draco realized he was staring at Ronald, and wondered how long ago Madame Pomfrey had left.  The passage of time felt funny, all stretched out and also somehow collapsed, like a tent without its supports.  He clapped both hands to his mouth, helplessly.  What could he do – what was there to _do_?  Mrs Weasley moved to stand beside him, one strong arm holding the baby to her hip.  After a moment, her free hand rose to tangle with his, and squeezed.

Mr Weasley came up behind them and put an arm around his wife.  "Come away, love," he said, in a soft, intimate voice that immediately made Draco feel he should be elsewhere.  "We're not doing anybody any good here, are we?  Come away."

Mrs Weasley nodded, but her eyes never left Ronald's face.

"Come now, Draco," Arthur Weasley said, and Draco's eyes leapt to the older man's face in shock.  "We need to do something productive, don't we?"

"Y-yes.  Sir," Draco said, and tugged on Mrs Weasley's hand.  He looked up to find that George was still standing on the opposite side of the room, leaning against the wall.  He regarded the three of them with a complicated expression.

"Come along, Mollywobbles," Arthur said, leading her away with an arm around her shoulders.  Molly nodded tightly, lips pressed together with grief.  Draco went ahead of them to hold the door for Mrs Weasley, who had shifted to hold the baby with both arms.

Ron stood in the hallway.

Draco felt as though he'd been drenched in a bucket of icy water.  His eyes traveled from the top of Ron's brilliantly orange head, to his dark blue eyes, to the curve of his nose and the sweep of his lips, down to his chin, across his clavicle, down his shoulders, broad, and the dangling arms he hadn't yet grown into, finishing at the tips of his long fingers with knobby knuckles, dusted with hair and sienna freckles.  He heard himself make a funny sound, and then he'd taken a half-step forward, and then suddenly he was clutching at Ron with all of his strength.

" _Oof!_ " Ron said, but brought his own arms up fast enough.  "Okay.  Okay," he said, and brought one hand up to the back of Draco's head, where he'd hooked it over Ron's shoulder.  "It's all right."  He lowered his voice.  "It took Malfoy the same way, only… he cried.  So, if you want to, that's okay.  I don't mind it."

Draco couldn't.  Already, he was gathering himself, marshaling his forces and drawing up his reserves.  After a moment, he straightened.  "We're blocking the way," he said.

"Yeah," Ron sighed.  He peered over Draco's shoulder.  "I'll thank you to put that look away," he snapped, and tugged Draco forward.

Draco looked behind, even as Ron was yanking him, and saw George's face.  His stomach flipped as he thought of what George would tell Fred and, sure enough, when they emerged again into the living room, George made immediately for where Fred and Bill were sitting.

Ginny was sprawled out on the floor with a large piece of parchment in front of her, wand in hand, but she scrambled to her feet at the sight of her parents emerging from the bedroom.  Draco watched the colour drain out of her already-pale features, and sighed.

"Let's move to the kitchen," Bill said, seeing everyone gathered together again.  "We can expand the table and talk there."  He walked towards the only other doorway in the living room to a large, modern kitchen that was indubitably charmed to be bigger on the inside; impressive magic for something so large as an entire room.  Bill lifted his wand to charm a small table for two to fit everyone who had come spilling into the room, when Mad-Eye spoke up.  "Order members only," he rasped.

" _Come on_!" Fred shouted.  "George and I are of age..."

"And you aren't Order members as of yet.  Run along," Mad-Eye ordered, his magical eye spinning in his head.  "Go find Malfoy if you're so keen to do something useful."

Ron and Ginny grumbled to themselves, but it appeared that they knew better than to shout at Mad-Eye.  Draco watched with a sinking heart as some of his staunchest allies rose from the expanding/contracting table and moved to leave the kitchen.  At least Mrs Weasley and Bill wouldn't want him or his counterpart thrown in Azkaban straightaway.

"This is ridiculous," Ginny said as they all moved back to the living room and flopped on the semicircular windowseats that lined the walls.  "We're _in_ this, there's no use saying we're too young or too inexperienced.  It isn't as though we have a choice, is it?"

"So why didn't you speak up when I did?" Fred said.

Draco was surprised to realize that, even though he'd lost sight of the two boys as he got lost in his own thoughts – even though they were wearing identical jumpers – it was no longer impossible to tell them apart.

"Well, maybe I figured it wasn't worth the trouble of an argument if no one was going to give in," Ginevra grumbled.

"And _you_?" Fred said, arms crossed, glaring at his twin.

George grinned.  "I figured we could have our own meeting, didn't I?  Away from prying eyes."

Fred's grin grew to match his brother's.

Except it didn't, quite, Draco decided.  Fred's was a little more crooked, wasn't it?

"So," said George, raising his wand.  Everyone scrabbled for theirs, casting multiple _Muffliato_ s in a tight circle.  George turned to Draco, who blinked.

"Y-yes?" Draco stammered.  The Weasley twins were a little scary, really, even before the evidence of Fred's ready hexing.  The blood was still flaking off his arm.

George licked his lips.  "All right," he said, very fast.  "Uh, so you figure Snape could help?  Or was that just your raving twin?"

" _What,_ " said Fred.

"Oh!" said Ron.

"You're kidding," said Ginevra.

"Yes," said Draco.  "He'd help.  I'm sure of it."

George nodded, eyes going fierce.

Fred whipped his wand around.  "Are you lot _mad_?" he shouted.

"Hush!" Ginny ordered.  " _Muffliato_ only goes so far!"

" _Are.  You.  Lot.  Mad?!_ " Fred whispered.

"Yes.  Yes," George said.  "We're mad.  Ron's dying.  We'd do anything."

Ron, sitting across from his brothers, went bright red in the face.

"You believe me," Draco said flatly.  "Him – us."

"I don't know!" George hissed.  "I don't know what to – but I saw Malfoy.  I saw _you_."

"And then there's _Necto fiddes_ ," Ron said.  "He can't be plotting against us.  He _literally can't_."

Draco couldn't believe he'd forgotten that – that his counterpart had.  "That would've been a good argument to use," he said faintly.

" _Necto fiddes?_ " Ginny said.

"It's a fealty spell," George said.  He narrowed his eyes at Draco.  "You're under a _fealty_ spell?"

"To who?" Fred demanded.

"To me," Ron said, quickly.  "It means he can't work against me.  So Draco has to be telling the truth, as he understands it."  Draco noticed he left out the part about not being able to plot against _any_ member of the Weasley clan.

"Blimey," said George.

"All right," Fred said.  "So long as you didn't muck it up, Ronniekins."

Ron turned red all over again.  "Hey!"

"But trusting _Snape's_ another matter," Fred went on.  "He killed Dumbledore!  He led the Death Eaters into Hogwarts!"

Ginny nodded.  "Look, Malfoy, I can just barely get on board with sitting next to you without expecting a hex at my back.  But Snape?  I can't see how getting killed is going to help…"  She floundered a moment.  "…your Ronald!"

"Malfoy seemed pretty confident Snape'd do it," George said.

"Malfoy always seems confident!" Fred exclaimed.  "With his pureblooded nose in the air, and his bloody wand up his…" he snuck a look at Draco, and frowned.  "The point is, Gin's right.  We want to save… Ronald.  Doesn't mean we're ready to _die_."

"But Malfoy had an answer for that," Draco interjected.

Ginny and the twins looked a bit taken aback.  "Weird to hear you say that," Fred grumbled.

"Whatever you like, _him_ , the other one," Draco corrected impatiently.  "You lot don't have to go."

"Then who will?  It's not as though you can do it," Ginny said, reaching toward him…

Draco gasped.  She'd _tugged on_ the magical chain that Moody cast around his ribcage as if it were a physical entity.

"I see things," she said with a shrug, as though she hadn't just demonstrated a magical talent he'd never noticed in any other witch or wizard or read about in any book.  "In any case, neither of you are leaving the grounds."

Which explained why no one seemed to care where Malfoy had gone, Draco realized, heart sinking: it was because he couldn't have gotten far.

As if the thought had Summoned him, Malfoy came crashing through the front door, slamming it behind him so hard that it rattled on its hinges.  He stared at the assembled group with such blazing fury that Draco found himself pulling back, even though he could feel the hurt and horror thrumming beneath the rage.  There were ten seconds of dead silence as Malfoy stared each of them down in turn.

"I'll do it," George said, then winced, as though he hadn't known he was going to speak at all.

Fred hissed at his twin, something too low to hear.

"No, I'll do it," George repeated, stronger.  "It's Ronniekins, and Draco can't betray him, and… then it's just one person we're risking.  One person for one person isn't so bad."

"You can't," Fred choked out.  "Everyone'll know you're missing."

George stared at him.

Fred sighed.  "No, they won't," he grumbled, and Draco realized Fred could impersonate his brother, walking in and out of rooms in the cottage frequently enough that one boy could easily be mistaken for both.  They were even, as he had observed before, wearing the same jumper.

"I'll go with you," Ron said.

"No you bloody well won't," Fred snapped.  "You _would_ be missed, you idiot."

Of course he would, Draco thought; Mrs Weasley would be looking for him every second.  _He_ could barely keep his eyes from straying to Ron's face.

Draco turned to look up at Malfoy, who stood frozen by the doorway, staring at the twins.  The blond-haired boy blinked, shook himself.  "All right, cast your Patronus," he said, turning to Draco.  "Send it to Snape.  Tell him Ronald is hurt and suggest a place to meet."

Draco drew his wand and cast; a white fox leapt forth from its tip.

Malfoy made a funny, squeaking sound.

" _Is that a ferret_?" Fred asked.

Draco frowned.  "Are you blind? It's a fox."  He glared at Fred.  "I don't see how anyone named _Weasley_ should be casting any stones."

"No, no," Fred said in a choked voice.  "Carry on."

"I will," Draco replied, then turned to the lithesome creature.  "I have a message for you to carry to Severus Snape," he said.

It took a few Patroni back and forth before they could agree on a meeting point that George knew well enough to find via Apparition, and that Snape thought was safe enough for prolonged discourse: the Shrieking Shack.

"Are you sure you're not going to tell him who to expect?" Ginny asked.  "Only, if you don't, I worry about my brother's head being hexed clean off his shoulders."

"D'you really think he'll notice?" George said.  "I think we Weasleys are all the same to him, anyhow.  He must've called me Fred more often than any of our other professors, even when we had separate classes."

"If we say it's not me or Draco going, he'll just refuse to show up," Ron said.  "He's not going to agree to reveal himself to anybody new without a by-your leave."  He quirked a sympathetic grin at his brother.  "Expect a real performance."

Fred and George winced in eerie tandem.  "More than normal, like?" George squeaked.

Draco sighed.  "Professor Snape's reputation is literally his life.  Think about it."

Ginny threw her arms around George's neck.  "Don't let him intimidate you," she said.

"Don't let Severus Snape intimidate me.  Check," George replied.

"She's right," Draco said.  "Just… kind of… ignore what he says, and focus on what he does."

"Huh.  Ace advice, actually," Ron said.

"Don't fuck this up, Weasley," Malfoy said.  "Or your little brother will die.  How's that for motivation?"

"Fuck off, Malfoy," George said companionably.

Fred glowered at him.  "I still think this is so, _so_ daft.  The daftest thing you've ever done."

"That's saying something, isn't it?"

"Bloody well do it right, then, and come back," Fred said.  "I still wish I was going with you."

"Two of us?  Snape'd hex the pair of us on sight."

"And you think one of us's any different?"

George grinned.  "Only one way to find out."

* * *

A/N:

Whew!

One reader commented that the most weird/interesting aspect of _Secret of Slytherin_ was watching an author analyze their own work.  I thought it the comment was tongue-in-cheek, but now I'm not so sure.  If JKR had a version of her books with ruminations at the end of each chapter, I'd probably be on that like white on rice.  ;)

On the re-read, Draco's interactions with Malfoy are the most interesting to me in this chapter.  What stuck out for you guys?  What did you like the most?  Was there anything that seemed odd/interesting to you?

 **On the rec front** , this week's is _The Strange Disappearance of SallyAnne Perks_ , by Paimpont, found on ff-dot-net. The story takes a canon error - the description of FIVE Hufflepuff girls in first-year, followed by only four mentioned everafter - and elaborates her 'disappearance' into a very compelling story. Great mystery, marvelous characterization of all three of the Trio, and a well-realized ending that may surprise you. Although it's quite well-known, with over 1000 reviews, I'd never seen it recc'd before, so maybe you have not either.

Another chapter and another rec next time, folks!

I have many fic in the works, and my motivation is directly proportional to your interest, so please **review** if you're interested in seeing more.  We are nearing the end of what I've already written, so... fair warning.  :)

-K


	20. Experiment!

George Weasley rocked back and forth on his heels.

It was odd being in the Shrieking Shack in late afternoon.  He could hear people moving about outside, now and again, which made it feel different from creeping around at night.

He sat at the piano and tickled the ivories a little.  The piano wasn't just out of tune – some of the notes he hit didn't even sound, as if the strings inside had  snapped.  He played Chopsticks: off-key, missed notes and all.  It sounded like something written by Rachmaninoff while Confunded.

Then, he had to check on Ronald again.

He'd laid Ronald out in the center of the room, transfiguring a bit of torn cloth into a pillow and a detached wooden plank from the floor into a throw.  It did not do anything to help conjure the image that his brother was only asleep.  Ronald still looked all-the-way dead.  George could only just see his chest rise and fall if he focussed hard, which made him think that he was really just imagining it, which made him cast a yet another diagnostic spell.  Again.

Snape was late.

George didn't know if Snape was late because Snape had been killed by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, because he'd seen George and turned around straightaway, or because he was still fixing his hair so it looked its greasiest.  All George knew was that it was doing his head in.

He'd started counting the number of slats in the boarded-up windows when he heard the telltale crack of Apparition.

Severus Snape stood before him, in all his bat-like glory.  "Charlie Weasley," he snapped, bringing his own wand to bear with a snap of robes that George tried to find totally lame and unintimidating.  "Where is Draco Malfoy?"

"It's George.  And he's safe; but Mad-Eye's got him, so he couldn't come, himself."

" _Safe_ , but _Mad-Eye's_ got him?" Snape echoed nastily.  "Those are two mutually exclusive premises, Mister Weasley!"

It hadn't occurred to George that he was going to have to account for Draco's whereabouts without actually telling Snape where anyone was.  These, too, seemed mutually exclusive.  "Er…"

"Am I meant to believe that Draco Malfoy entrusted you to go in his place?" Snape said.  " _Incarcerus_."

George felt invisible chains snake around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides.  "Hey!"

"Far more likely someone intercepted my messages… someone from the _Order_ perhaps… and decided to send one of my old _students_ … in hopes I should be more… forgiving…"

"No one would ever believe you would!" George squeaked.  "I'm just here because of my brother!"  And he eyed the bundle behind Snape significantly.

Snape turned, but slowly, as though he feared some trick.  "I see that," he murmured, tilting his head to the left.  It gave George the impression that Snape hadn't addressed him at all, but some other, invisible _someone_ at the Potions Master's side.  Snape continued muttering to himself as he approached Ronald.

George squirmed as much as the _Incarcerus_ would allow, which was to say that all his squirming was on the inside.  Any moment now, and Snape would look down that long, greasy nose and _laugh_ at the very idea of helping a Weasley, followed by turning that wand on George, Ronald, or both.  He hazarded the guess that something had gone very wrong with the man since he'd last prowled before a Potions class, and it wasn't as though Snape had been Professor Self-Possession _before_.

But it was his little brother lying there.  So what choice did he have?

"Mr Weasley!  Are you even listening?" Snape snapped, whirling impressively given the confined space.

George blinked.  "Sorry, sir, just thought you were talking to yourself some more.  How long has that been going on?  Because there are potions –"

"I should have known even your brother's life would be a joke to you," Snape said, raising his wand high in the air to cast –

… _Diagnotic charms._   Or at least, the first few were diagnostic charms.  George didn't recognize any of the rest as Snape tried spell after spell on Ronald.

"Not a joke, sir, not at all, sir, wouldn't want you to think so, not for a moment," George babbled, relief loosening his tongue.  "I'll tell you whatever you need to know, I swear, and not one joke about your nose or your robes, or your hair, sir, not even a little one."

Snape stood, slowly, then whirled to face him.  It made George dizzy.

"My brother –" George said.

"Is under a stasis spell," Snape said, pocketing his wand.  "I shall have to do some investigation before I can be confident in any diagnosis.  Therefore, I shall need to know more from you."  He crossed his arms over his thin chest, the sleeves of his robes folding neatly against his torso.

George tried to rid his mind of bat-imagery, metaphors, and associated vocabulary.  Just in case any of them popped out without his say-so.

Snape snorted and cancelled the _Incarcerus_.  "Describe the hex in detail.  Do you know who cast it?  How long did it take before the spell visibly took hold of Mr Weasley?  Has it been getting noticeably worse?  Has anyone else examined him?  Don't look so flummoxed, Fred Weasley; I doubt a known Death Eater and murderer was your first choice."

"Uh," George fumbled, rubbing at his wrists, but luckily Ginny, who had seen the spell, had coached him.  " _AK_ green, maybe a shade or two lighter?  It hit him like a bolt.  A Death Eater cast it, no one recognized her with her mask, but her hair was long and dark blonde or light brown."  George tried to recall the other questions.  "Um… it seemed like he was like this since he was hit, no better or worse.  And Madame Pomfrey saw him, but she couldn't figure it out."

"Did she say anything at all, or are such details beyond your ability to recollect?  I seem to remember quite a few erroneous details on your exams over the years…"

George bristled.  "Yes, but nothing _helpful_ , or I would've said, _professor._   She said it was either a very new spell or a very old one, because she didn't recognize it."  Suddenly, he remembered something else.  "She said it seemed more like a poison than a curse.  Dad said it was like Draught of the Living Death."

" _Nothing helpful_ ," Snape imitated.  "Perhaps you will allow the Potions Master to decide what is _helpful_ in this case," he went on, eyeing George up and down, "as your brother's condition is not the result of a _Puking Pastille_."

George felt his cheeks grow hot.  "Fred invented those, actually.  And it's _George_.  You can't be a spy and have that bad a memory."  He gaped, an idea blossoming suddenly in his mind.  "You've known _all along_ how to tell us apart.  Every time you called me Fred in Advanced Potions…"

Snape's expression remained _exactly the same._

"You did it to twit me!" George accused.

"Petty revenges are better than none," Snape replied.  "Now you are mobile, help me with my bag."

George turned to the door to see that Snape had left an old carpetbag at the entrance to the Shack.  He ran to fetch it and brought it to Snape, extending it slowly with one hand, rather like he used to feed good old Hagrid's pet skrewts in sixth-year.

"Don't do that, it –" Snape began.

The handle on the old bag twisted and slipped off; luckily, George still had his Quidditch reflexes.

"Merlin's _sake_ ," Snape said.

"Here," George said, feeling weirdly young and stupid.

"Make yourself useful," Snape ordered.  "Locate the shrivelfigs and slice them according to page sixty-four of…" Snape paused, blinked.  "Fuck," he said, drawing his hand down his face.  "You don't have your textbook.  What am I thinking?"

George wasn't sure if there was a safe answer, so he didn't say a word.  Instead, he opened the carpetbag and peered inside, then felt a grin tug at his cheeks.  " _Wow_ ," he said, setting the bag cautiously down.

The inside of the bag held an entire Potions laboratory.  The rungs of a rolling ladder, barely a foot wide, lent access to shelves and shelves of Potions ingredients.  A rough worktable could also be found within, made of what George thought was probably slate, given the material in their Potions classrooms and its dark, opaque surface.  To the table's left was a large, cast-iron rack on which cauldrons of many sizes and materials swung.  George could make out the usual pewter of all sizes, but also a size-two silver and a tiny gold that was probably used to brew _Felix felicis_ itself.  "Merlin's arse," George swore, then looked up to find his professor looking at him expectantly.

George had an idea, then.  It played out very clearly in his mind's eye, the way all of his and Fred's pranks did.  He would climb down into the carpetbag.  He would claim not to be able to locate the shrivelfigs.  When Snape descended the ladder in frustration, George would hit him with a Stunner, scramble back up the ladder, and close the bag.  Carry it, and Ronald, back to Shell Cottage.

He'd be a hero.

George's gaze swung over to where Ronald lay.  It wasn't as though Malfoy were wrong.  The boy wasn't Ron, exactly: he still had his own, true brother at home.  And besides, maybe the Order could actually force Snape to help them fix Ronald, even if he didn't want to, after he'd been interrogated: no harm, no foul.

But his higher sensibilities knew that wasn't how it would play out.  Moody would hex Snape on sight, maybe kill him.  Maybe everyone'd dump Snape in Azkaban, quick-like, and forget about him.  No one would ever help Ronald then.  And George could tell himself all he liked that the boy in a heap on the floor wasn't the boy he'd played pick-up Quidditch with, twitted about his crushes, and felt proud and jealous and protective of, angry and comfortable with all his life.

He could tell himself that.  But it would be a lie, in all the ways that mattered.

George looked up to find that Snape's gaze had never left him.  But he didn't say, _well, Mr Weasley,_ or _sometime today, Mr Weasley_.  There was something in him of the rabbit scenting the fox.  Written in every muscle was the conviction that, if he stayed perfectly still, he might not be noticed; and a readiness, too, to hare off in the safest direction the instant that freezing no longer did the trick.

George realized in a flash of insight that Snape _knew everything_ , everything he'd been thinking, and even Snape wasn't but so clever.  "You're a _Legilimens_ ," he said, feeling like ants were crawling up and down his spine.

Snape's expression didn't change.

"I'm not going to," George said.  "I'm not, I only thought it a minute.  You can't blame a bloke for his thoughts."

"I can do as I please," Snape said, in a strangled, quiet voice.  "However.  It is not unexpected.  You have a lot of questions, still, about who I am and what I have done.  And you could hardly have been Sorted to Gryffindor if it did not occur to you, at the very least, that this meeting presents you with a unique opportunity for _heroism_.  I wonder, though, if the Hat considered you for Slytherin.  It's awfully… _ambitious…_ to imagine that a Hogwarts dropout such as yourself could capture a known Death Eater and murderer so easily."

 _A known Death Eater and murderer_.  It was the second time he'd said it, just that way.

Wasn't that just how Mad-Eye had put it?

Exactly how long had Snape been listening in on George's thoughts?

_Merlin's arse – every time he's met my eyes, I'll bet._

"The Hat almost did place you in my House, didn't it?" Snape said with relish.  "Did you have to beg to be placed with your brothers?  Well, Mr Weasley.  I admit I am much relieved to have the aid of a fellow Slytherin in this endeavour.  Perhaps I can trust you to be more sensible than your execrable twin brother, or your headstrong youngest.  Now.  _Get the shrivelfigs._ "

George scrambled to obey.

It was mad, brewing next to Severus Snape.  Then again, thought George, a bit wild, which part of this business wasn't completely mad?  He knew if he tried to tell his family about _any of this_ , they'd think he'd gone barmier than a crate of Chocolate Frogs.

"Slice them _thinner_ ," Snape said, leaning over his work – _just like in class._

 _Mad,_ he thought.  "You slice them if I keep doing it wrong," George grumbled, but under his breath so that the other man could ignore it if he wanted to.

It seemed like Snape preferred to spoil for a fight.  "Mister Weasley," he said in the very tone that made George want to piss himself as a firstie, "if you are interested in helping your brother, you will obey me.  I am no longer your professor, and _losing points_ are no longer the stakes here!"

George pressed his lips together.

"No, do go on," Snape said.  "I'd love to hear it."

"Fine," George said, slapping the knife down and scattering _perfectly sliced_ shrivelfig everywhere.  "You're right, _Mr Snape_ , you're not my professor anymore.  Fred and I started our own business, our own _Potions business_ , so you can stop teaching your grandmother to suck eggs!  If I slice the shrivelfigs any thinner, they'll dissolve too fast into the base, and the entire thing'll explode, but maybe _that's what you want_ , maybe you don't give a toss about my brother or my family or anybody but yourself…"

George felt horror creep up on him as his fit of temper wound down, and then sick to his stomach.  Of _course_ Snape cared about Ronald, or he wouldn't be helping at all.  _Ignore what he says, and focus on what he does,_ Draco Malfoy had said, but George couldn't seem to remember that one moment to the next.  Not when Snape wasn't just pushing his buttons, but leaning against them and refusing to let up.

"That's right," Snape said.  "I'm a very selfish man.  Now add the shrivelfig to the base, one pinch at a time."

George added it without any further argument.

"Since you're the expert, perhaps you can instruct me as to what I ought to do, next?"

George flicked his gaze up to Snape's face.  He was wearing that expressionless look of his, so that it was impossible to tell if he were serious or sniping.  "This is a healing-potions base," he tried.

"As any first-year could tell me," Snape said.

George held himself back from commenting that the average fifth-year probably wouldn't have known as much, but he'd learned a bit about Healing Potionry as a precautionary measure when he and Fred were experimenting.  "If Ron was hit with anything like Draught of the Living Death, then you need something with stimulant properties," George said.

"Something even a Muggle could deduce."

George felt like he was exerting more self-control in this hour than in the rest of his life combined.  He _would not react._ "Ginseng root," he said.  "Coffee bean.  Cocoa.  Toadspittle.  Coca.  Guarana.  Eleuthero."

Snape's brows lifted.  "Pick one, Mister Weasley."

"Just pick one?" George stared.  "My brother –"

"Isn't getting any better no matter how many ingredients you _name_ ," Snape said.

"Why can't you pick one?" George said.  "I mean… I know what I just said, but…"

"Mister Weasley," Snape interrupted.  "I have invented seven potions in my career as a Potions Master.  The first was Wolfsbane, and it is what earned me my Mastery."

George goggled.  "That's _yours_ , sir?"

"And how many have you and your brother invented?"

George stared.  "Uh… t-thirteen?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?"

"Thirteen," George said.  "I mean, a lot of them were the two of us just tweaking the recipes of some pretty familiar stuff," he went on.  "I mean, none of them were _Wolfsbane_.  They were joke shop items."

Snape sighed.  "Perhaps you see now why Ronald would fare better were _you_ to pick.  You are a natural _experimenter._   Most Potions Masters are content to make their living by brewing, as it is less hazardous to their health.  For example, I am unaware that Professor Slughorn has invented more than three potions in his entire, illustrious career."  He eyed George up and down again, but this time the look was more assessing than dismissive.  "It is beyond my understanding how you have managed to keep all ten of your fingers.  So perhaps you have some… instinct… that I do not."

George shrugged.  "We came close to losing 'em a few times."

"My estimation of Molly Weasley soars higher yet," Snape said.  "Now.  Choose."

It was too important to pick blindly.  George went to the swinging ladder and fetched each of the ingredients he had mentioned, and lined them up in a row, so he could look at them at the same time as the base.

"Ginseng works slowly.  Maybe too slowly," George said, setting it aside.  "Eleuthero, too."  He walked to the shelf to put the Eleuthero back, and saw Ephedera sitting beside it.  "This one," he said.

"If you're sure," Snape replied.

George swallowed.  "Yeah," he said.  He scooped some out with a sterile, ceramic spoon and placed it in a mortar and pestle to crush.  He rotated his wrist the way Professor Snape had taught him, back when he was a firstie, until the thin, pine-like herb was a true powder.  Then, he added it to the potion-base, pinch by pinch, until the entire quantity was swallowed by the liquid.

The potion turned a brilliant, midnight blue and belched a cloud of grey smoke.  Snape took one look and yanked George away by the back of his robes; at the same time, George cast a hasty Shield Charm.

The cauldron exploded, its contents splattering against an invisible surface a foot in front of the pair.  "Did you know that was going to –"

"Of course not," Snape snapped.  "I'm not playing a _game_ with you, Mister Weasley.  Well?" Snape said when George sadly regarded the mid-air splatter.  "Begin again. I shall get the water."

After the third try, George conjured a blackboard in one corner of the room.  He created a table of everything they'd attempted to add first and then crossed each one out.  Then, he created new branches for new ideas, things they hadn't tried, yet.  "Maybe it needs a _stabilizer_ first."  He withdrew talc, goldenrod, and boiling chips from the shelves, then drew a new chart for each permutation.

Snape moved to the rack of cauldrons and retrieved two more pewter cauldrons of precisely the same size.  He set them up side-by-side and lit a low flame beneath each.  "We have a limited amount of time before the Order realizes Ronald is missing, and when they do, it's not going to take them long to discern where he must've gone and with whom.  If this endeavor is to have any chance of success, we must test multiple concoctions at once."

George set water to the same level in each cauldron with a wave of his wand – water, the only ingredient that could ever be magicked into a cauldron without bollixing a potion all to Hades – his mind whirring.  "Chop the shrivelfigs, would you?" he asked, handing the container off.

The jar of shrivelfigs left his hands, and it was only five minutes later when he was looking for them chopped that he realized it wasn't Fred he'd just ordered around.  "Cheers," he said, feeling his face glow bright red.

Snape handed him a weighing dish of prepped shrivelfigs with a raised brow.  "So long as they are chopped to standard," he said, and George realized Snape _had made a joke_ and barely knew what to do with that, so he added the shrivelfigs to each cauldron, one after the other.

"And if one of these explodes, ruining the others?" Snape asked.

George swore, then quickly cast a shield spell between each cauldron – and then _above_ each cauldron as well, just in case.

He crushed the talc while Snape crushed the goldenrod, and then they placed their boiling chips, talc, and goldenrod in the three separate cauldrons and stepped back.

None of them exploded.

"Well.  Merlin's hairy left testicle," said George.  "Uh, divide each of the three into smaller test batches?"

Snape sighed.

Two hours later, they didn't seem any closer.  The blackboard was full of scribbles in George's and Snape's hand, with item after item crossed off.  So far, they'd managed a basic healing base with goldenrod or talc, plus ginseng, chopped, not powdered, plus eleuthero… but then, no matter what they put in next, it ruined the potion.  Twice, the potion had exploded; four times, it had done the opposite, what George thought of as _sludging_ : the concoction coagulated to form a useless, gelatinous ooze.

"The stirring," George realized.  "We probably have to stir widdershins."

Snape looked on the verge of passing out, but he nodded, rose off of the chair he'd conjured, and fetched more water.  And _shrivelfigs_.

"I never want to see another shrivelfig again," George said, watching his own arms raise to take the jar from Snape with a sense of weary betrayal.  _Et tu, hands,_ he thought, then shook his head free of cobwebs.  Merlin, he was getting silly with exhaustion.

Still, he chopped them, and powdered the goldenrod – he had a feeling it was going to be the goldenrod stabilizer that made it, he really did – and, once he added the eleuthero, he divvied the mixture into experimental mini-batches, and added coca leaf, quickly stirring counterclockwise.  The potion changed to a midnight blue.

George had a gut instinct that he could _make_ the potion stay stable, through sheer force of will if by no other means.  He kept stirring, watching as the grey steam began to gather at the potion's surface, rising off of its unnatural color, but gently, and he thought _if I stop stirring, now, it's going to explode._

"Weasley –" Snape began.

"No.  No, it's fine," George said.  "Really.  Just… next ingredient.  Your turn.  I can't reach for anything, I can't even think anymore.  Just do it."

Snape placed _something_ into his outstretched hand.  George dropped it into the cauldron.

The cauldron's contents began to crystallize.  George changed his stirring direction again, a pleading litany threading through his thoughts: _this time, let it be this time…_

The liquid within bubbled, hissed, and emitted a faint, golden steam.

"Remove it from the flame!" Snape ordered.

George did, nearly fumbling the cauldron in his haste.  George looked at Snape, then peered inside.

The potion was a pale green, now, like seafoam.  It emitted one more, golden bubble and lay quiescent.

"What do you reckon?" George said.

Snape's lips twitched.  "It is a new potion," he allowed.  "It is a new, stimulant, healing potion.  Of this we are certain.  But whether or not it will work on your brother…"

"What did you put in?" George said.

"A beozar," Snape replied.  "They do not work on curses; they are meant to counteract poisons.  But as a potion ingredient…"  He raised an eyebrow.  "Instinct tells me that perhaps parallelism has its place.  If it works, this will be the second time this year that a beozar will have saved the life of Ronald Weasley."

"Brilliant," George said.  He rotated both shoulders.  "How long have we been here?"

Snape replied immediately.  "Six hours and twelve minutes."

George didn't know whether to be impressed or kind of weirded out at that degree of specificity without a Charm.

"There is no telling when Arthur and Molly will notice you missing," Snape added in the face of his silence.

"Mum'll notice us missing at bedtime," George said.  "Dad wanted her out of the room where Ronald was… sleeping… but she'll check on him before she goes to bed.  It's what mums do."

"Then when does Molly typically retire?"

"Nowish," George said.  "Nine, ten.  If she's plotting with the Order, it could be later."

"I will return," Snape said, standing and stretching out his back muscles.

"Where are you going?"

"To strengthen the wards I established when I arrived.  I'll Apparate out if they go off, and you shall take all the credit for your brother's recovery."

"And where will I say I've managed to get a mobile Potions laboratory?" George said, brows raised.

"Previous experience says you'll think of something," Snape shot back at him rather irritably, and climbed the ladder out of the carpetbag.

George huffed a bit for appearance's sake.  He cleared up a bunch of spilled potion, scrubbed out the cauldrons by hand so his magic wouldn't interfere with whatever was brewed there next, but left the ingredients out.  There was no telling if the potion they'd created would help Ronald, and they might need them again.  He Scourgified a probably-already-clean glass phial and decanted some of the potion inside, then fumbled around until he found a box of corks and located one to match the mouth of the container.

George climbed up, then, after Snape, but he must've been quieter than he'd thought.

"…I'll admit it, then, if it please you: he's skilled," George heard the older man say.  A pause.  "Isn't that going a little far?" he added.

George hunched back into the carpetbag a bit, but stayed high enough on the ladder to peer out.

"If you say so," said Snape, low.  "I _know_ that."  Snape stopped speaking, but his attitude of thoughtful listening remained.  Then, Snape's shoulders slumped, and his head shook side-to-side.

"It is too late," he said, finally, and crossed his arms.  It was clear the conversation, such as it was, was over.

George waited a beat, just to be sure, then clambered noisily out of the carpetbag.

"Took you long enough," Snape growled when he emerged, "or did you forget that your brother was lying here, standing with one foot on the firmament and the other through the Veil?  Perhaps you have so many brothers you do not count the loss of one as a tragedy?"

George's brain seemed to _sludge_ to a stop, just like all their failed experiments.

Snape pulled a hand down his face.  "Forgive me.  I… spoke injudiciously."

"It's habit, isn't it?" George said, cautious.  He sidled forward, holding the phial of potion tightly in his right fist.

"Perhaps," Snape said.  His voice sounded like a wrung-out rag.

"Don't lose the plot, sir," George said.  "We're so close, aren't we?"

Snape blinked at him.  "Yes.  Close," he said, "but to what, I wonder."

"After this you should take a vacation," George said.  "To Barbados.  Someplace warm."

"Should I?" Snape said.  George got the feeling the man was amused, even though there was nothing in the dour man's features that seemed to alter.  Maybe it was just a decrease in the feeling of ambient danger, as though George were a smidgen less likely to be hexed than before.

"You know," George said.  "After Voldie's kicked it."  He frowned.  "But that makes it sound like he's going to a dance party, which just isn't right."

Snape stared at him, blinked.  Something must have struck him – maybe he saw the image of Voldemort in heels doing the can-can, because that was just what George was picturing in his mind's eye.  Intently.  While looking at Snape.  But for whatever reason, Snape snorted in unmistakable amusement.

And then looked very surprised.

"That never happened," George said swiftly.  "Potion."  He handed it off to Snape.

Snape's lips quirked, but he said nothing.  Instead, he knelt beside Ronald and tipped the boy's chin up, forcing his lips to part by squeezing his cheeks together between thumb and forefinger; with his other hand, he popped the cork to the phial and tipped the potion down Ron's throat.  It all seemed very practiced; George figured he'd probably done the same thing over and over again to students in the Hospital Wing.

They watched Ron's face for reaction.  Snape stroked Ronald's throat with the flat of his hand to encourage swallowing.

Nothing happened.

The breath flew out of George like he'd been kicked.  "Maybe it takes a mo' before it really…" George said.  Then he shook his head.

"Do not scrap the potion," Snape replied.  "Just because it does not work here does not mean it will not work for any purpose.  You may have created an alternative to Pepper-Up –"

Ronald took in a deep, rattling breath, then rolled onto his side and began to cough.

"He's choking!" George whacked his little brother on the back.  "Come on, baby brother," he said.  "Get it out!"

"Stop it!  That does not help," Snape said.  He pulled Ronald's torso into his lap, _reached into Ron's mouth_ with a crooked finger – _fearless_ , thought George in helpless admiration – and yanked.

Ronald immediately rolled again onto his side and vomited noisily.  Snape Vanished the vomit while Ron coughed, tears rolling down his face.  He gagged a few more times without bringing anything up, then subsided, taking in thready, shaky breaths.

George hauled Ronald to a seated position.  Ronald kept coughing, doubling over and then trying to speak before beginning the entire process again.  George couldn't stop himself from pressing a hand to the side of Ron's face, into his hair, onto his shoulder, the same way he'd kept casting Diagnostic charms, to make sure Ron was still there, to feel the warmth of his brother under his hand, his _realness_.

Snape examined what he had yanked from Ronald's throat.  It was a black, tar-like globule that looked like Dark Arts made manifest.  It must have liked Snape's scrutiny about as much as George did, because it began to inch away under its own power.  Snape dropped it, disgusted, then set it on fire.

It _screamed_.

"What in Merlin's name was _that_?" George squeaked.

"The work of an experimenter such as yourself, Mister Weasley," Snape said darkly.  "This was a _Spiritus negrum_ hex.  But the substance that Mr Weasley – Ronald – just released bears all the marks of Draught of the Living Death.  I don't know what to make of it," he said.

"Ash, and I thank you for that," George said, maneuvering Ronald so he could lean up against George's side, so George could take his weight.

"If one of the Death Eaters has learned to weave potions into their hexes somehow…"  Snape looked weary again, as though another dark thought could tip him sideways.

"Could a potion be _stored_ in a wand?  Like Vanished, and then Cast to make it reappear?"

"In that case it would have to be brewed the old-fashioned way, first," Snape said.  "Although _casting_ any potion would likewise be a new technique, never mind weaving a potion into a hex.  Charmwork often undoes the subtle balance between the ingredients of…"  He paused.  "Not going to tell me to teach my grandmother to suck eggs again, Mister Weasley?"

"Teach me anything you like, you're my favorite professor ever," George said, absently rubbing Ronald's back with one hand.

Snape ducked his head.

George tried to gauge the man's expression out of the corner of his eye.  Embarrassment didn't translate well onto Snape's sallow features.  "Well, I hate to brew and run, but…" George said.

Snape's expression darkened.  "Be cautious, Mr Weasley.  I fear we have unraveled the work of some Dark genius tonight; and, perhaps, not for the last time."  He stood, then wavered, shooting one arm out to balance himself against the piano.

"What are you…?" George began.  _When did you last eat?  Do you even have a safe place to sleep?  What are you doing in the war, now?  Are you still serving Voldemort?_ He frowned.  "Draco – uh, the, other one – he told me to give you this, but only once we'd done what we came to do."  George handed Snape the letter – which he _hadn't_ looked at before handing over, thank you very much, despite insinuations from _certain people_.

But Snape was staring at him, blinking uncertainly.  Then, he scoffed, yanking the letter free of George's outstretched hand.  "It doesn't take you long to shift your loyalties, does it?" he snapped.  "I'm a grown wizard, Mister Weasley, and I've been at this longer than you have."

"I didn't mean –" George said, but Snape was gone in a clap of Apparition.  "Balls," he said.

"Hullo," Ronald said simply, leaning into George's chest.  His throat sounded like it'd been scraped with knives.

"Hi, Ronniekins," George said cheerfully.  "How're you feeling?"

Ronald took a shaky breath.  "Numb," he said.  "Can't… move.  Much at all."

The smile flew off of George's face.  "Fingers?"

"Fingers.  Toes.  Mouth," Ron said.  "Eyes.  All okay.  But… hard to… breathe."

George's gaze flew to Snape's carpetbag.  Snape'd left it there by mistake when he'd gotten irritated with George…

George shook his head.  Snape was a spy in the age of Voldemort.  Snape didn't make casual mistakes.  "No worries, Ronniekins," he said.  "We're going to figure it out.  We've got everything we need."

And Ronald's laugh sounded a bit breathless, but warm all the same.

* * *

**A/N** : The _Spiritus negrum_ hex is not canon, but it's personal canon: it's from Hermione's and Draco's conversation about _the ends justifying the means_ in Secret of Slytherin. Hermione supposes the hex is evil, and Draco says it's all in what the spell is used to do. It's the first quasi-civil conversation they have, after Draco is ordered to 'be nice'.  

For funtimes, re-read the chapter to look for Snape's reactions to George, knowing that Snape is Legilimizing him _constantly_.

 **Time for recs!**   It's been awhile since I recc'd a TV series, so I'm going to go with _Farscape_.  

There are a few things that set the show apart from its fellows.  Unlike most well-known sci fi serials, which tend to take themselves very seriously, Farscape has a generally dramatic plot with frequent inclusions of Hitchhiker's Guide-style hilarity and gleeful lapses into pure nonsense - something that seems rather realistic for a human falling in with criminal aliens, which is the general premise.

The treatment of aliens on the show is unique.  In many sci-fi shows, humans are considered both the 'normals' and the natural masters of the galaxy; in _Farscape_ , the human main character flounders for quite some time before coming into his own, making his progress feel hard-won.  Jim Henson's company handled the non-humanoid aliens, and it's absolutely astounding how quickly you forget that you're not looking at an actual creature with an actual personality.  And rather than looking like some specific earth culture with deliberate mistakes (like the Bajorans, eg), each race and culture is vibrant, distinctly _unusual_ and distinctly _inhuman_ , including living ships and photosynthetic humanoids.

The plots weave together in a rather non-episodic way, and certain seasonal arcs are nothing less than brilliant.  Added to that is a wild and wacky vibe, with a sex-positive attitude reminiscent of _Torchwood_ 's, and you've got something that may not be to everyone's taste - but if you like it, you're going to fall head-over-heels.

 **Reviews** \- I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this one. How did George 'feel'? Snape? What did you think of the brewing process? I probably could have gone on and brought them back to the Cottage in this chapter, but I felt like here was a decent place to end it.

I'd love to hear any/all speculations. Even if I don't 'use' any ideas, it always gets the creative juices flowing. ;)


	21. Puzzle

Hermione knew they had a problem when the swing of the Locket led them through Diagon Alley and to Gringotts bank.  There was absolutely no way that the goblins inside would let them wander around, unimpeded.  Even if Remus managed to duck under the Invisibility cloak alongside she and Harry, a bank, of all places, would have failsafes against sneaking around underneath one.  Such Cloaks, while rare, were not unheard of, and if _she'd_ been designing a bank – well.  It sufficed to say that she would have planned for far more creative contingencies than mere _invisibility_.  Magic mirrors that could see through one?  Wards that made the wearer visible when he strode through?

Besides which, Voldemort could have placed the Horcrux anywhere.

 

 

1\. In one of the vaults of his faithful servants.

A. Snape's vaults

i. Which would be awfully convenient, wouldn't it?

ii. Would Voldemort be incautious enough to entrust a Horcrux to a spy?

iii. Considering the man's legendary paranoia, probably not.

B. The Lestrange vaults

i. Likely.  No one is as persistent and as mad as Bellatrix Lestrange.

ii. Bellatrix was mad and skilled and therefore unlikely to be caught; and even while she was jailed, somehow her family managed to

ensure that none of her assets were seized.

iii. Impossible to consider her betraying the cause.  He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was as likely to trust her as anybody.

iv. However, it might be putting all his Horcruxes in one basket to use her vault.

C. Pettig –

i. No.  He'd been dead too long to _have_ a vault.

2\. As a flagstone, at Gringotts or door-pull, or something else innocuous.

A. It was exactly what she would do, if she were to make a Horcrux.

B. But no: Voldemort was too consumed with his own importance.  The object would be:

i. Ostentatious

ii. Personally meaningful

iii. In the vault of a favored servant…

iv. Or a hated enemy?  Someone like Voldemort might find that irony rather delicious.

3\. Conclusion: too many variables.

 

 

And even supposing they did know for certain it was in a vault, and in whose, how would they _unlock_ it?

Hermione tugged Harry off into one of the darkened side-alleys that littered Diagon, keeping a keen eye on Remus to make sure he trailed along.  Too well she remembered her last invisible sojourn with Remus Lupin!

Wistfully, she thought back to fourth year: wished for Ron at her and Harry's side, imagined they were off on some adolescent adventure like fetching a sundae from Fortescue's and gossiping about end-of-term exams.

But Fortescue's was closed, now, the shop windows dark and crossed over with wooden boards to prevent squatting.  And Diagon Alley suddenly looked like the sort of place where such a thing might be necessary; Hermione hadn't noticed at first because she was so focussed on the swing of the amulet, but Diagon Alley was practically empty, odd for a Saturday in August.  (Was it August already?)  Students should be shopping for school supplies, readying themselves for their next year at Hogwarts.  Children should be running through the streets, tugging their parents to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, Flourish and Blotts, Quality Quidditch supplies.  Instead, there were no children at all, and the grown witches and wizards she did see were in huddled, quickly-moving groups.  They spoke in library-voices, as though afraid anything louder might draw the wrong kind of attention.

An unusual group passed by Hermione, Harry and Remus as they crouched at the mouth of the alleyway.  This group wore bright colours: the wind carried their loud, raucus voices, a high, clear, hysterical note.  Being brave the only way they knew how, she supposed.  _Or,_ she thought grimly _, rightly believing it won't matter a jot, either way._

"Come on," she said.  "Grimmauld."

Harry nodded.  Remus looked worried, but after a moment, he agreed as well.

Hermione pressed her eyes shut against the funhouse mirror image of Diagon Alley, and when she opened them, she was staring up at good old Grimmauld.

The wash of fondness surprised her.  She supposed that, be it ever so humble, Grimmauld had become something like a home.  It was the only place she hadn't been chased out of, the only place she and Harry and Ron (and Draco? and Snape?) could show their faces without fear.  She heard Harry emit a sigh of relief as he made it through the door, his hand pressed to the small of her back.

A bit of dust stirred up at their entry, but never fully formed.  "Oh, get on with you," she ordered it, and it settled, chastised.  A hex broken by Severus Snape even on his worst day still rolled over for her idlest command like a whipped dog.

Harry pulled the Invisibility Cloak away from their heads, and Hermione breathed another sigh of happiness, running a rough hand through her sweaty curls.  "Merlin," she said.  "I know I oughtn't complain when we all have worse problems, but…"

Harry's fringe was stuck to his forehead.  He jerked his head at Hermione – a wordless Freshening Charm.

"Ahhh," she breathed.

Remus was silent, prowling; doing a circuit of the house, she realized.  Making sure it was as safe as the silly children already thought it must be.  She flushed and belatedly drew her wand.  Harry shrugged, letting Remus have at it; understanding that Remus was going to circle the house until he was satisfied.

"What are we going to do, Harry?" Hermione wondered aloud.  "Even assuming the goblins would let us wander where we pleased in the middle of the securest place in the Wizarding World, we'd never be able to _open_ the right vault.  Give me a few months and the best libraries in the world, and I might come up with a plan to unlock it without getting us killed, but…"  She shook her head, moving down into the kitchens; Harry followed her as she picked up their old, cast-iron teapot, spelled it clean, and filled it with water.  "We can't," she said, setting it on the hob.  "It can't wait.  Harry, did you see Diagon?  It looked like Fortescue'd left in a hurry.  Been taken?  It's a matter of time before they begin taking others.  Anyone with useful information.  Anyone with the _wrong blood_ …"

"Easy," Harry said, gripping her by the shoulders.  "Easy, Hermione."

She looked up at him from under her lashes, daring him to tell her she was being unreasonable, but his face held no condescension or censure, only worry, and she felt her frame relax under his hands.

"We need a plan is all," he said.  "We're good with plans."

"You know who's good with plans?" Hermione said.  "Draco Malfoy.  And Ronald Weasley, too."

There was a space of silence.

"Did it make sense to split up?" Harry said.

Hermione knew what he meant.  Not having Ron here felt _wrong_ in a way that seemed to set the entire world two degrees off of centre: just enough to notice the tilt when she held quiet and still.

And life without Draco Malfoy was deficient in idle, clever chatter, and scathing sarcasm, and far too quiet.  Hermione would be the first to admit he'd been useful: but it was strange, the pang with which she already missed his steady competence, the way he swiftly put Harry in his place without making the other boy defensive.  Without Draco or Snape to take on some of the responsibility, she was watching Harry crumple before her eyes.  He looked so _resigned_.

But she also missed the way Draco included her, smiled at her, the warmth that said he liked to have her around.  As a girl much smarter than the children she'd grown up with in primary, Hermione valued that clear welcome more than most.

"Remus seems easier in himself now they're gone," Hermione replied, probing that wound alongside all the others.

Harry scrubbed his hand through his fringe.  "I think he's relieved he's got only us to manage," he said.  But before Hermione could ask what he meant by that, Remus himself had opened the door at the top of the staircase and was peering down.

"It's safe," he said, shortly, and disappeared.

"Four o' clock and all's well," Hermione said, trying to get a smile out of her friend.  _I'll help you_ , she wanted to say, _always_.  But Hermione was good at data (the gathering of) and Ron and Draco were good at data (the sensible arrangement of) and Harry was good at action (data or no data), and they were no good when they were missing the middle piece.

Without it (him/them), Hermione knew Harry would dart off in the wrong direction, and Hermione'd never held the key to making him sit and listen about his homework, much less something this important.  Too well she remembered how he'd wanted to hare off to Godric's Hollow with no plan whatsoever, and only Draco Malfoy shouting at him had made him see sense.

Hermione sipped her tea in silence, data spinning in her head, and no one to help her make the connections.

Hermione, good as her word, gathered her books to her and began to research ways to break into Gringotts.  So far as she knew, no one had ever broken into Gringotts: it was their claim to fame.  That meant her best bet was to look up curse-breaking spells and thievery spells in general and hope she found something obscure enough or complex enough to give them a tiny chance of success.

At the same time, this was entirely unlike their other ventures.  They were going to _break into a bank_ , for Merlin's sake – she was practically Bonnie to Harry's Clyde.  If they were caught, they weren't going to be killed: or worse, expelled.  Instead, they'd be sent to Azkaban, where Death Eaters would find them and enjoy torturing them until they begged for death.  Even if she were to somehow escape, or thwart justice, Hermione was grown-up enough to recognize that if her name were ever associated with a bank robbery, she could kiss most careers goodbye after her NEWTs.  She'd have to be – she wasn't sure.  Something where a bad reputation was something of an asset, she supposed.  A freelance cursebreaker?  A consulting detective?  She snorted.

In any case, she would rather not have her career dreams swiped aside by ugly necessity, so it was important to her plans that her and her friends' involvement never be discovered.

The next several days of fruitless searching were more what she had expected the Horcrux hunt to be like, once Harry had described his plans to her: the waiting part of hurry-up-and-wait.  She researched.  Harry brooded.  Remus made a stab at the mutually exclusive desires of avoiding her and Harry and watching them both like hawks.  And August unspooled, hot and damp, frizzing Hermione's hair and her wits.

So it was that when she heard two voices in the drawing room, she was less concerned with discovery, and more excited at the very thought of a distraction.  She flew down the stairs – she'd made Regulus's old room her research haunt, out of a combination of nostalgia and vindictive glee – but held back with all the remainder of her own natural good sense.

Sure enough, Ron and Draco stood in the doorway, Draco sternly ordering the dust to settle (just as she had! Hermione had to hold back a giggle).  She supposed she should watch them an extra moment, just to be sure they were who they appeared to be, and… she scanned all of the entryway she could see from her perch.

Where were the other two?  Hermione could see from here that the Ron in the entry had a shorter, more settled fringe than the Ronald from the other world, and the Draco with the easy, quiet way about him was the one she liked best.  Still, she had an especial fondness for that other Ronald, who seemed much easier around her, joked with her, treated her like a favored companion instead of one of the guys like her own Ron did.  And she worried what it might mean if Malfoy had been left behind.

"Suppose they've gone out for fish and chips," said Ron to Draco.

Draco ruffled his hair a bit, dislodging dust – apparently, the half-spectre of Dusty Dumbles (as Hermione had taken to privately calling him) had been a bit more aggressive with him.  Somewhat more soberly, she wondered if some part of the dusty incarnation recognized its killer somehow, or Draco's _Death Eater-ness_ in some way.

"Can you imagine Harry stopping the Quest for fish and chips?" he asked.  "No.  They'll be hiding somewhere.  Harry will be lurking in some dark corner, planning and brooding."

"Hermione'll be researching," her own Ron said, fond, and Hermione grinned, wiping at a smudge of ink on her right palm.

"Lupin," Draco said, tasting the world.  "Lurking, I expect."

Hermione no longer had any doubt.  She flew down the stairs and surprised Ron with a hug.

"Oof," he said.  "Hullo, Hermione!"

She drew back to offer Draco Malfoy a grin, but he was giving her one of those funny looks.  "You look like you've seen a ghost," she told him.

"Do I?" he said.  "Sorry.  Only… with your hair up, and your feet bare, and it's the right _time of year_ again… you suddenly looked like the Hermione I left behind."

"I reckon she'll forgive one, if you'll forgive the other," Ron said cryptically, then grinned.  "A bit like old times, you and me on our own," he said to Draco, and punched him in the shoulder.

Draco rolled his eyes, but he was smiling.

"Where is everyone?" Ron said.

Hermione frowned.  "I might ask you the same thing.  Where are… the others?  No one's hurt, I hope."

The boys exchanged a glance.  "Perhaps we ought to wait until we won't have to repeat ourselves," Draco said.

Hermione's smile quavered.

"There," Draco said, and drew close enough to press a warm hand to her bare shoulder.  "They're safe.  They're both safe."  He drew back, but not very far.  "Don't make that face, Hermione," he implored, and Hermione felt that stab of fondness she knew she oughtn't on a few weeks' acquaintance.  But when faced with a young man who seemed to believe at the very heart of him that she was his family, her own warm nature responded in kind.  Her smile firmed, filled with affection.

"I can _see_ the gears whirring," he teased.

"I – there's been a lot to think about.  We think that the next Horcrux is at Gringotts."

To her surprise, Draco nodded.  "In Bellatrix Lestrange's vault," he agreed.

To say that brought Hermione up short was an understatement.  "What?  How do you know?"

Ron looked just as flummoxed.  Apparently, Draco hadn't shared this piece of information with the other boy.

Draco shifted his feet.  It was the most uncomfortable she'd seen him since he'd told her he understood why she and Harry didn't trust him – though at the time, she hadn't been fully able to accept that his emotions were real.

"My father told me," he said.

Ron turned to stare.  "Okay, let's grab Harry and Lupin; they're going to want to hear all this."

Hermione wandered up the stairs in search of Harry; she was pretty sure he'd have to be in one of the bedrooms not to have heard the boys' arrival.  Ron and Draco went looking for Remus.

Hermione located Harry in Sirius's old room, which he'd claimed for _his_ own.  He was asleep, sprawled across the bed with a book inverted across his chest, glasses askew.  Probably _Quidditch Through the Ages_ , she thought, fondly, then was brought up short when she crept close enough to read the title: _Hexes and Counterhexes: Advice for the Wartime Wizard_.

Hermione chastised herself.  Harry was doing his best, but their immobility over the past several days was driving him mad, and that madness tended to display itself in fits of childish temper.  Though they'd started out researching together, Hermione had eventually retreated to retain her sanity.  She hadn't been aware that Harry was still trying on his own, pushing himself until he slept over his research.

Hermione had never quite loved him as she did, now: while perfectly aware of, even exasperated with, his faults.  Because he kept trying, always.  Because he tried so hard to do and be good.

"Harry," she said.  "Harry, they're back."

Harry opened his eyes, wiped drool away from his mouth absently.  "They?"

"Ron and Draco," she said.

Harry sat up fast – too fast.  He blinked rapidly.  "What?  When?  What time is it?"

She indulged in a bit of eye-rolling.  "It's just past noon.  Come downstairs, it's an oven in here anyway."

Harry cast an absent cooling charm and followed her down, blinking sleep away from his eyes.

Hermione wasn't sure how the boys would greet each other.  It was perfectly all right for Ron to swing her in a circle, but she wondered if they'd content themselves with manly grunts and 'all right's, or if Harry would let on just how much he'd fretted over the pair in their absence.

Harry did neither.  He jogged lightly down the stairs as though they hadn't gone days without seeing Ron, without knowing what had become of him, but then came to a halt at the foot of the stairs.  Hermione peered around him.  Ron and Draco were looking up at him, Remus beside them.

Harry stayed silent, and Draco went still, like a hound dog on point.

Then, Ron was stepping forward, clasping Harry's hand in his, casting a puzzled look back to Draco as he did so.  He clapped a hand across Harry's back.  "Glad to see you're all right, mate," he said quietly, and withdrew.  Harry mustered up a smile for him.

Still nothing to Draco, although they kept silently _looking_ at each other.  She wondered what was passing through that connection of theirs.

"Shall we go downstairs and sit with a cuppa?" Remus offered.

Hermione felt the corner of her lip twitch up.  Remus looked exhausted, but some of his native politeness seemed to return with Ron and Draco.  Perhaps he was as glad to see them as she and Harry were, in his way.

"Yes, please," Draco said, sounding fervent.

But then there was a rasp at the door.

Remus growled low in the back of his throat.  Hermione drew her wand from her skirt pocket.  Ron drew the walnut wand, and Harry thrust himself to the front-and-center, ready to die for them if need be.  Draco rolled his eyes and moved beside Harry, elbowing him and offering up a half-mad grin before turning to the door.

Hermione savored the sweet sense of being Quite Right, As Usual, when she saw the lines of Harry's back relax just a fraction at the idea of Draco Malfoy with a wand standing at his shoulder, Draco himself behaving as though someone about to discover the party was as tiresome as a lengthy homework assignment.  She grinned, and caught Ron grinning too, and the lot of them were mad as hatters, weren't they, thinking how much fun it was to be back to back and side by side again?  But she hardly cared.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," came a voice, and a wand which pointed at the dust on the floor and Banished it, followed by a hand, and a black-clad arm, and pointed, lace-up-boots, and the sallow face of Severus Snape.

Everyone's wand hand drooped simultaneously, save Remus, who was a tick behind.  "Professor!" Harry said, and stood a bit straighter.  "We didn't… that is, we're very glad you're back."

Severus Snape took in the situation immediately, with his large, dark eyes, intelligence flashing through them like sheet lightning.  "Was it Minerva McGonagall or Bellatrix Lestrange you were hoping to Stupefy?" he inquired archly.  "You, at least, Remus, should have been expecting me."

Remus frowned in confusion.  Then, "…oh."

"You'd think you should have the ability to keep track of the _full moon_ ," Snape growled, "whether you are gallivanting with a bunch of teenagers on a magical scavenger hunt or not.  I'm here to make sure you take your medicine, rather than forget.  Again."

Lupin said nothing, but he looked rather as though he'd been slapped.

"Come along, Remus," Snape said, herding the other man before him, down into the kitchens, where there were Potions ingredients as well as stasis'd bread and apples.

"You haven't called me anything but 'Lupin' in the twenty-some-odd years we've known each other," Lupin replied.  "Why is it 'Remus' all of a sudden?"

"Shut up, Remus," Snape said, and the door closed behind them.

"Suppose I sneak down for that kettle and some snacks and bring them up here?" Ron said.  "Wolfsbane takes forever, but I reckon we could all use some lunch."

"Suppose we all follow them down?" Draco countered.  "Snape will want to hear what happened as well, and he can brew Wolfsbane in his sleep."

So agreed, they all followed the older wizards down to the kitchens.  Ron put the kettle on the hob, Harry pulled out bread for sandwiches, and Hermione rustled around for something to put on them.  She found lettuce still under one of her own preservation spells, and a bag of preserved apples, and a hock of ham.  She cut thick slices off the latter with her wand until there was a good-sized pile, and set it on one of Grimmauld's pieces tarnished silver, one of the ones she'd uncursed.

The boys set to with a will, grabbing at the meat with Scourgified hands, building sandwiches piled high with ham and lettuce.  After Draco placed thin slices of apple onto his sandwich, the others had to try it, too, and there were a lot of happy exclamations that had more to do with the company than the simple fare.  Remus seemed to relax a notch, smiling at the boys and accepting a sandwich from Harry with both hands.

Snape, however, was in full brewing mode, and said little.  Eventually, Draco joined him, handing him necessary ingredients, chopping some of the less finicky herbs, and grinding stones to fine powder.  Once most of the food was gone, and even Ron had taken to casually picking at the leftover bits of ham, the war talk began in earnest.  Hermione listened with horrified fascination as Ron and Draco described what had happened to Ronald.  "Oh, no, Draco," she said.  "You told me he's all right now, though?"

"Mister Weasley was much recovered last I saw him," Snape replied, crushing aconite beneath a large, marble pestle.

"Last _you_ saw him?" Remus said, and Ron explained the role of Snape and George in his counterpart's recovery.

"And what has become of Mister Malfoy?" Snape returned.

Draco took in a small breath.  "He's… decided to stay behind and take care of Ron.  Ronald," he corrected, looking to the Ron at his side.

"He's _decided_ to?" Snape volleyed, not even looking at the small group seated at the table.  "I highly doubt it was his _decision_."

"Yeah, well, all right," Ron agreed.  "It wasn't all his decision.  Moody has him under house arrest.  But he seemed just as pleased," he tacked on.  "War doesn't agree with the Malfoy we know.  Besides, it struck me that he'd rather stay right where he was."

And for some reason, he followed that up with a light flush, which Hermione couldn't parse.  Embarrassed, for the other Draco Malfoy beside him?  Embarrassed at the very thought of cowardice?  _It struck me he'd rather stay right where he was_.

Hermione snuck a look at Draco from the corner of her eye, but he was contemplating eating another apple.  For once, he seemed oblivious to the undercurrents of the conversation.

Snape, however, was not.  He looked up from brewing for the first time, with raised brows.

Ron gave him an almost apologetic shrug, and everything slid together.

" _Really_?" Hermione said, sweeping a stray curl behind her right ear.  "Malfoy… uh, _likes_ … um, Shell Cottage?"

Ron looked caught out.  He shrugged.  "Um.  Seemed awfully fond of it.  Yeah.  Sure didn't seem like he minded being stuck there."

Hermione turned to stare at Draco, who had finally caught on to the fact that he was being discussed in some roundabout fashion.  "What?" he said.  "Who's stuck with what?  Sorry, I was… elsewhere."

"Never you mind," Ron said.

And Hermione, to save Ron from the embarrassment still decorating his features, launched into their own problem.

"It's Bellatrix Lestrange's vault," Draco reiterated.  "My father told me while we were pretending to do battle.  Then he said that my mother would have to take care of the other one."

Snape looked up.  "Lucius Malfoy is an untrustworthy bastard," he snapped.

Remus sighed.  "That is the boy's father you're talking about, Severus."

"A man who would skin you as a werewolf and hang you up on the wall as a decoration for his foyer until his wife told him it was too gauche," Snape returned.

"For Merlin's sake!" Remus exclaimed.  "As… _colorful_ … as that is… perhaps we should return to the issue at hand."

Hermione hid a gawp behind her cupped palms.  She'd never realized how much of what she knew of Remus's personality existed in direct opposition to Severus Snape's.  There was no questioning the fact that Remus had been in a dark, angry place since Albus Dumbledore's death, but being with Snape seemed to bring out shades of his old self.

_Did it make sense to split up?_

"As happy abusing my father's character makes _all_ of us, I am sure, the issue at hand is, _dare we trust the information?_ " Draco said.

"Well," Hermione said, "I mean, it's clearly true that one of the, er, _items_ , is at Gringotts.  We've confirmation of that much, at the very least."

"My father's defection makes little sense," Draco said.  "The tide is turning, but it's not as though _he_ can see it turn.  The Horcrux hunt is, so far as we know as of now, a secret held only by those of us in this room.  I am wary of the very fact that he _knew_ we were searching.  How could he have discovered our intent?  Even… Mrs Malfoy knows nothing of them."

Hermione winced.  She thought, _what about the affection your father bears you?_ but it was quite clear Draco thought that could never be a factor, and there was no use rubbing salt into the wound.

"Your father," Snape said, "is doing the intelligent thing: making sure the Dark Lord is indebted to him, but the Light is as well.  If the Light wins, it will be in part, his doing.  If the Dark Lord wins, it will be in part, his doing.  No matter what, he claims amnesty, at the very least.  As far as how he knows about Horcruxes?"

There was a pause.

"I suppose there could be books that mention Horcruxes at Malfoy Manor," Draco suggested. "We have left Hogwarts; we must be doing _something,_ and it doesn't look as though we're running - not to anyone who's paying any attention.  As for how he knew where some were, it should only make sense that he might have overheard something Lestrange said.  She's prone to boasts when she's angry."

"Lucius might very well have been entrusted to place the item in her vault in the first place," Severus observed.  "Which may play in our favour."

Ron cleared his throat.  Hermione smiled; this year, Ron had done a lot of growing up, but he still had a bit of a tentative air when he announced an idea that she found kind of charming.  "What about _Necto fiddes_?" he said.  "Wouldn't Malfoy _have_ to help us, even if he didn't want to?  Wouldn't he be prevented from scheming against us, even if he didn't know Draco had sworn fealty?"

And that was the other part, Hermione thought; Ron's contributions were often very salient points.  It was as if he'd suddenly lost that fear of being seen as bookish that he'd carried all the time she'd known him.  Or lost the fear of being seen as slow; it was hard to tell which.

"Then his information cannot be suspect," Snape said with a nod.  "Now.  The question is, how to get into the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange without her key, her face, or her wand."

Ron's head jerked up.  "Er… we _do_ have her wand."

Lupin drew back in surprise, and Harry turned suddenly sullen for some reason.  It took Hermione a moment before she remembered why: Ron had pocketed Bellatrix Lestrange's wand at Malfoy Manor, when Harry had been Stunned and Incarcerus'd and stuffed into Snape's closet with a lock over the door.  It obviously wasn't a happy memory for the Boy Who Lived in a Closet for Hours.

"You _happen to have_ Bellatrix Lestrange's wand?" Remus growled.

"We don't _happen_ to have it," Ron said.  "I stole it when Hermione took the Locket.  And I've been using it ever since the Snatchers broke mine."  He lay the wand face-up on the table, a twisted, unusually long wand made of black walnut.  "Poor thing," he said, stroking a finger down its face, "it seemed right _glad_ to have a new owner."

Remus shook his head.  "The wand alone wouldn't confer enough authority," he said.  "Wands can be stolen, even lost.  If we were to simply show up with Bellatrix Lestrange's wand, it's more likely we would be accused of theft or fraud than let in the most secure building in the country and led to the correct vault.  Half of the wards run on intention, besides; like the wards at Malfoy Manor.  Anyone meaning to steal something would set them off like a flock of Howlers."

"So who _can_ access a vault, besides its owner?" Hermione asked.

"Family," Draco said, and it took Hermione a moment to catch on.

"Draco, I could focus on you and that I was your guest at the Manor and make myself believe it," she said, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.  "But were you ever close to your aunt?  Could you imagine her asking you to check on her vaults as a personal favor?"

Draco shook his head.  "She… was always mad," he said after a moment of quiet.  "And she was in Azkaban most of my life.  Mother didn't like to talk about her."

"But after you took the Mark?" Harry said in a low voice.

Draco slumped out of his usual, careful posture; his lips parted, as though he were searching for words.

Oddly, Ron was the one who spoke up.  "Malfoy didn't want the Mark," he said.  "Not ever, I don't think.  I doubt he was much fond of Lestrange then, either."

"Well," said Draco, "perhaps when I was fourteen, and an idiot.  Back when I thought it all meant glory and honoring my family name."

"But once it happened, he didn't – there wasn't a _time_ he gladly served," Ron went on, sounding a bit fierce.

Meanwhile, an idea was forming in Hermione's brain.  A horrible, overwhelming, _terrifying_ idea.  All the pieces were in place.  She was surprised that Ron or Draco hadn't spotted it:

 

 

I. The Skill Set of Severus Snape:

1\. Severus Snape was a Master of Mind Magics.

A. He'd done _something_ to Draco when he first arrived.  Something that changed Draco in a fundamental way.

 **(** Hermione had deduced this much, but she hadn't gotten him to talk about it.)

B. Snape had used Draco's psyche as an anchor point to pull Harry back from death.  She suspected the process

was far more complex than her current understanding implied.

  C. Perhaps most impressively, he had somehow convinced He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named that he had altered

the fabric of Draco's very personality, that he had caused Draco to change sides by using something more fundamental

and vital and powerful than the Imperius Curse.

2\. Voldemort was (most unfortunately) Not Stupid.

A. Which meant he had evidence (prior) that Snape could do as he suggested, or at the very least, similar things to what he suggested.

B. Therefore, Severus Snape was a Master of Mind Magics, possibly the greatest who ever lived.

II. The Locked Vault of Bellatrix Lestrange:

1\. Only Bellatrix Lestrange herself could open the vault.

2\. Or a member of her family.

A. Draco Malfoy was Bellatrix Lestrange's family.

B. Severus Snape had already demonstrated that he could alter Draco Malfoy's perceptions with extreme skill.

III. The Wand of Bellatrix Lestrange:

1\. Many wands could be used as keys.

2\. Even if Bellatrix were too paranoid to have used her wand so, the very presence of said wand would lend legitimacy

to anyone seeking to open her vault.

Therefore…

 

 

"I see that look on your face," Draco said.  His grey eyes were grim in the dim light of the kitchens.  "You know our answer, and we're not going to like it."

Hermione swallowed.  "I don't… I'm not sure it'd work, actually.  No.  I mean, perhaps it's better not to –"

"Out with it, Miss Granger," Snape snapped, sprinkling the powdered aconite into his brew.  "Coyness has never before been one of your defects."

"Well," Hermione said, straightening unconsciously, as though Snape had called on her to answer a particularly challenging question in class, "first, you convinced He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named that you could have changed Draco's very nature; and then later, you almost _did_ , when you wove his memories with Harry's.  I was just wondering…"  Hermione's gaze darted to Draco's.  "Well, if you couldn't really convince Draco that he _was_ on an errand from his aunt.  To fetch an important item of particular power.  Carrying her own wand, as a gesture of good faith."

There was a moment of stillness.  Then,

"What?" said Draco in a small voice; Harry shook his head in consternation; and Ron stared at her as though she'd lost her mind entirely.

"A clever idea from the cleverest witch of her age," Remus said, in a tone neither full of warm approval nor entirely mocking: a statement of fact.  "But the bank's wards are keyed to recognize Polyjuice and the Imperius.  Even if one of us were willing to Imperius Mister Malfoy to believe –"

"I'm not talking about Imperius," Hermione cut in.  "I mean – mind magic.  If Professor Snape can make Draco believe he _is_ that fourteen-year-old wizard again, I think the wards wouldn't notice.  Because it _is_ him, you see; he'd be operating under his own will, nothing interfering with it… or not since the reset itself, anyway," she tacked on.

Remus scoffed.  "No one can do that."  He turned to Severus.  "The very _idea_ that someone _could_ is…"

Hermione turned to face her old professor, who was staring _through_ Remus, features grim.

Remus's face had gone very carefully blank.  "You _could_."

"I've never tried," Snape returned tartly.  "I am not in the habit of regressing witches and wizards to their former selves.  Besides which, it is out of the question.  Mister Malfoy's mind – such as it is – has been damaged enough, already."

"Well.  Thank you," Draco said.  His own, clear eyes met Hermione's, and she experienced a shiver of doubt and guilt at what she saw there.  "But it's a brilliant idea, of course.  I'll try it."

"Come on, mate, no," said Ron.  "There's another way."

"With all due respect, there may not be," Draco countered.  "Hermione, you've spent a few days in preliminary research.  What have you found?"

She shook her head.  "Nothing that could help us, here.  Gringotts has its reputation for a reason."  She looked up at Snape.  "I'm not talking about damage, in any case," she said.  "There is no reason why you ought to have to _destroy_ any part of Draco Malfoy.  Just… close off the newest bits, and open them back up when we're done."

Snape paused in his stirring for a moment, before continuing.  "Sometimes," he said, in a tightly controlled voice, "you are the most foolish witch I have ever had the misfortune to encounter.  What you suggest may in fact be our only road into Gringotts, but do not for an instant imagine that you have the slightest grip on the particulars.

"The Death Eaters are right about one thing," he went on, stirring faster and plopping the next ingredient into the steaming brew with more force than strictly necessary.  "It is the tendency of the Muggleborn to misunderstand and misuse magic.  It is not a toy you may pick up when it pleases you, and place back upon the shelf once you are done, Miss Granger!  Magic has consequences that cannot be reversed by magic alone."

"It has to be Draco's decision," Harry said.

Hermione pressed her lips together.  She didn't believe Harry could have said anything that could make Draco feel worse.  Draco's gaze darted over to Harry, to her, to Snape, to Remus, to Ron.

"Yeah," he said.  "Yeah.  All right.  It's worth a try, I suppose," he added, and stood.

"Where are you going?" Harry asked, rising from his seat as well.

Draco paused with one hand on the wall by the stair, and for a moment Hermione thought he might respond without facing them.  But then he turned, and his expression was smooth and calm.  "I'm going to get ready," he said.  "After all," he added, beginning to head up the stairs, "fourteen-year-old Draco Malfoy would never look like _this._ "

The men began talk of who would stay and who would go, but Hermione knew better.  There was strength and power in numbers.  And in differing skill-sets with little overlap.  It was why she and Harry and Ron loved one another so much and worked together so well: not because of their similarities, but their differences.  And looking around the table, she could not imagine a situation where a Potions/Mind-Magic Master, a werewolf, a strategist, a manipulator, a walking encyclopedia, and a Leader of Men wouldn't _all_ come in handy.

She rose from the table and moved up the stairs to tell Draco just that.

* * *

A/N: I do apologize for missing last week's updates, guys; things have been a bit crazy with me.  On top of all of that, I edited this chapter and then Firefox crashed, removing all my changes to the chapter.  I had to stop for a bit and come back to it, because when I've read something too many times in a row, I stop noticing its deficiencies.  Hopefully everything looks more or less correct, now.

A few canon reminders, because I know people will ask about the wand: the wand should obey/ work for Ron, since he took it from Bellatrix, fair and square. Remember that Hermione found Ron's wand cracked in two when the Snatchers took him, so his original wand is doomed.

I'm keeping a much closer eye on the timeline in this story than I did in SoS. It is the second week in August by the end of this chapter, and as Draco mentions, that's about when he left his own world.

IMHO, the seventh HP novel has the sloppiest writing and plotting of the lot... full of action and excitement and tragedy, but also Fridge Logic and Fridge Horror. I've had to spackle over a number of plot holes in the next few chapters, and I hope the result isn't too glaring.  We're now on one of my most favorite arcs in the story so far, and I do hope you enjoy reading it half as much as I did writing it.

For those of you following the story, thanks for sticking with me! I would really appreciate some reviews, especially as we go into the next few chapters, which were very challenging to write (despite how fast it went). Let me know what works/does not work for you!

Keep reading, keep writing everyone!

-K

 


	22. The Heist

Remus poked his head around the corner, facing the open door to Sirius's old rooms.  Draco Malfoy was inside, holding some old trousers: Sirius's, back from his all-black phase.

"Serviceable," said the young man, turning to a guilty-looking Hermione, "but nothing like the style to which fourteen-year-old-me had grown accustomed."

"Did you try the attic?" she wondered.  Was she worried about having been the one to suggest this course of action?  She ought to be.  It was a mad idea, and selfish, besides.  Remus should recognize that tendency to display one's genius before one's good sense.  James and Sirius had only ever been sorry afterwards, too.

"I hunted through the attic.  Nothing but mounds of out-of-date lace monstrosities and some of Cedrella Black and Septimus Weasley's letters under a concealment charm that's worn thin around the edges," Draco replied.

"Can't we just Charm what you're wearing now?" Hermione said, gazing at Draco's clothing with a critical eye.

"No," Remus countered, stepping through the doorway and joining the two.  "You'd feel the difference.  Charms are for other people."

"Charms are for other people?" Draco echoed.  He didn't seem surprised to see Remus standing in the door.

"When you do a charm on your clothing," Remus lectured, feeling as though he were back at the front of a classroom once more, "you do it to appear more put-together to others… but you still _feel_ the cloth against your skin, just as it is.  You might find that off-putting.  Only a Transfiguration will do."  Remus drew his wand.

Remus cast his mind back to the Draco Malfoy of third year.  He wore dark clothing when not in his school robes, he seemed to recall.  Not with the adult understanding of one's best colours – anyone with such pale skin, eyes and hair as Malfoy would look ghostlike in black – but with the adolescent belief that dark colours made one appear dangerous and grown-up.  The black ought to be a little overdone in that case, he thought, and spun Malfoy a dark jacket of a slightly different darkness, so they wouldn't all blend together.  A summer wool.  Dark trousers with a black buckle.  Handkerchief in top pocket, folded – dark grey.

"Are you dressing me for subterfuge, or a Victorian horror novel?" Draco inquired, peering down.

Remus raised an eyebrow.

"No, no, it's perfect, just… a bit of a peer through someone else's lens, I suppose.  Uncomfortable."  He squinted into Sirus's old full-length mirror, and Remus was struck with another unwelcome bolt of memory.  Sirius, insisting Remus be allowed to visit him here in his family home – his mother's barely-veiled disapproval – Sirius, home from Azkaban, peering just so into the mirror after a wash and a haircut.

_Well, it's a bit of a shock and no lie, Moony_ , he'd said, leaning in close.  _I'm older than I remember, but then, so are you._

"Oh, d'you remember your _hair_ back in fourth year?" Hermione exclaimed.  "It was all slicked-back and… _solid_.  It looked like it doubled as a Keeper's helmet."

"Thanks for that," Draco replied, rolling his eyes.  

"Let me see what I can find," Hermione said, and slipped past Remus and out the door.  Remus said nothing, watching Draco: waiting for him to show some sign of the boy he remembered from three years ago, that petty, sullen, vengeful child.  Minerva had told him that there was almost always one psychopath per year, and Draco Malfoy filled the quota.  He'd thought it unforgivably harsh; wondered if Sirius had been his year's, at least according to the Deputy Headmistress.  But the more he'd learned of Malfoy, the surer he'd been that she was right.

One could not change who – or what – one was.  Remus should know better than anyone.

"There's something very defensive about wearing all black," Draco said, breaking the silence.  "I don't think I noticed it, before.  A desire to step back and let the shadows hide you."

Remus opened his mouth to reply to this odd statement, but then Hermione returned holding a small bowl of cloudy gel.  "It's just some flaxseed boiled up, but Snape says it'll do," she replied, and began to sculpt.

"Whoa," Ron said when Draco emerged downstairs.  "Flash back to 1994."

"Well, and that's the idea, isn't it?" Hermione said.  "Does it pass muster?"

Remus leaned against the kitchen wall, half in shadow.  Severus was still preparing the Wolfsbane with an ease that was kind of obnoxious, considering that only a handful of Potioneers in all of Europe could manage, or maybe cared to try.

"It passes enough muster to make it kind of creepy," Ron opined, lip curling.

"Thanks," Draco said.  "I think."

Severus looked up with a face so blank that Remus read true shock behind the lack of expression.  "Yes, he looks…" he said, to no one.  "Correct," he finished, turning back to the potion.

"Look, if we're really going to try breaking into Gringotts, we need to talk to Bill," Ron said.  "He's not just one of the better curse-breakers out there; he works at Gringotts.  We're gonna need a man on the inside."  He paused.  "Sorry, I've just always wanted to say that."

"There are too many involved already," Remus said.  "Even if no one means to give us away, something they say, something they do may work against us despite the best of intentions."  He held his tongue on the subject of Percy Weasley – there was still no telling whether the boy had been captured, or killed, or _Imperio_ 'd, or a traitor – but to his surprise, Snape sighed, and said,

"Well.  I suppose we do at that, Mister Weasley.  And considering how much of the Weasley clan is in the know already, I suppose it does little _additional_ harm.  Come, let us invite your mother here as well!  I'm sure she'd be pleased to see that I'm continuing to make Wolfsbane for Remus, as she was always sure I'd manage to _forget_."

"Oh – well, speaking of other people," Ron went on blithely, "I can tell you right now that Fleur isn't going to let her husband go and talk to us thieves without her.  Right protective she is, since the accident."

Remus would have thought that this would set Snape off like a Catherine wheel, but instead, it yielded a put-upon sigh, and a 'needs must', muttered under his breath.

Sometimes he felt he didn't understand Severus Snape at all.

Ron conducted a hurried conference with Harry and Hermione – didn't seem to object when Draco listened in as well – and then departed.  Five minutes later, there were scuffing noises up the stairs as Ron arrived again, trailing Fleur and _two_ Weasley brothers.

Harry stood.  "Er…"

Ron shrugged.  "Bill says there's dragons," he said, nodding at Charlie.

Hermione gaped.  "Dragons!"

"Dragons," Bill confirmed.  "Well.  Dragon, singular.  A poor old thing that they've kept chained in the dark."

Charlie's face was a thundercloud.  "Come along, Ronald, I'm going to teach you some things about dragons," he said, pulling his younger brother aside.

Meanwhile, Bill sat at the table, Fleur beside him, clutching at his arm.  "I understand you've got to have a go at this," he said, "or I wouldn't suggest you ever even consider it."

Severus Snape continued to brew, but Remus could practically _feel_ him listening.

"There are several challenges you'll face.  One of the hardest to get by is the Thief's Downfall.  Installed it myself," he said proudly.  "It counters all hexes and charms.  But it won't activate unless the goblins believe someone is trying to steal something, so hopefully you won't face it at all."

" _All_ hexes and charms?" Remus countered.  "That'd be next to impossible."

"Up to and including the Imperius, and I'd know," Bill replied.  "Took some doing, but it's based on the twelve basic charm structures – unravels 'em all, fast as thought.  Even the more complicated stuff unravels in a moment or two, once the base of the charm falls away.  Polyjuice, too.  Just that, though, as far as potions're concerned; people take medicinals, you know," he added, eyes flickering to where Severus stood, brewing.  "Wouldn't do to have some poor bloke run through the Downfall accidentally and have a death on our hands."

"Would it unravel the charm on an Invisibility Cloak?" Hermione wanted to know.

Bill shook his head.  "The Thief's Downfall won't undo even basic Transfigurations, and Transfiguration is part of how Invisibility Cloaks work.  I was still working on all that when they fired me.  Let's just say that there are big changes being made everywhere, and my job was one of those changes," he added, with an attempt at a brave smile.

Fleur stroked the inside of Bill's arm.  "Eet is a shame," she said, "a 'orrible shame.  Zey weel regret it."  Her eyes were fierce.

Remus felt a flare of jealousy and had to look away.  When he looked up, Snape's gaze met his; forever the spy, forever noticing _everything_.

"You mean there are _no_ defenses against an Invisibility Cloak?" Hermione pressed.

"None I know of," said Bill.

Hermione grumbled under her breath something that had the word _idiots_ and _fools_ and _won't catch me putting_ my _hard earned-gold…_

"Those old vaults will also lock behind you if you aren't careful," Bill said, clearing his throat.

Draco nodded.  "I remember visiting my own vaults as a child.  They closed behind me; my father had to let me out."

Charlie approached the table, Ron trailing him, looking pale.  "I've taught Ronnie a few things," he said, "but the main thing you all have to remember is _don't use the Clankers_."

"Clankers?" Hermione echoed.

"Goblins train dragons with fear and with fire," Charlie replied.  "They have a sack of iron shackles they clank together whenever they hurt the dragon as a youngling, until the creature associates the sound with pain and helplessness."

Hermione looked stricken.  "But that's horrible!"

"And dangerously ineffective," Charlie said.  "Frightened creatures are unpredictable, as likely to attempt to destroy you in defense of themselves as to cower."

"Here," Bill said, standing, "I sketched a quick picture of the insides of the bank, but it's rough I'm afraid.  There are a few known passages out of the deepest caverns besides the cart-and-rail system, but no one really knows all her secrets."  He dropped a piece of parchment onto the scrubbed wood table and leaned forward.  "Here is the entry.  There is a series of caverns here and here, though no one knows where they let out."  He helped his wife to her feet.  "I would come myself, but I have cause to think they'd suspect foul play right off, considering what I said when I was sacked.  As a matter of fact, I reckon they'll change some of the defenses soon," he added with bared teeth.  He bowed.  "Best of luck to you," he said, and he and Fleur climbed the stairs together.

Charlie dithered for a moment, giving Ron some last-minute advice, it appeared, but once he was done, he turned to Severus.

Snape did not look up, but the slight stiffening of the other man's shoulders told Remus that he knew he was being watched.

"I never did believe it, you know," Charlie said.  He cleared his throat.  "Thanks for George, anyhow.  He's right excited.  And for… you know.  Everything," he said, and left before Snape could reply.

"George?" Ron said.

Snape shrugged.  "A harmless gesture," he said, "considering the likelihood of any of us making it out alive."

Silence fell in the kitchen.

"Well.  Are we ready?  Not much use in sitting around," Draco said.  "Let's get on with it."

Draco examined the Cloak, as though staring at it could make this whole inadvisable venture seem more tangible, more real.

Three teenagers could fit under it, at most; that was Harry, Ron, and Hermione.  Remus could enter of his own free will on the pretext of examining his own vault; Snape could accompany Draco.

And that was all of them: all six.

Draco said nothing, but his face was white and his hands trembled.

"You'll do all right," Hermione told him.

"And we'll be there," Ron said, "if it all goes pear-shaped."

"Which it, you know, very well might," Harry added.

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed.

"Well, but listen," Harry said, eyes flickering over Draco's features, "the Professor says he'll leave a tail of Mind Magic a mile long, and anyone with the slightest bit of Occlumency talent – _even me –_ can yank it free in a pinch."

"Wow, yes, that does make it sound awfully easy," Draco agreed, but his voice shook beneath the bravado.

Harry drew the other boy in and clasped him to his chest; Draco clung.

"We're going to be right there with you," he said.

Ron clasped Draco to him, next.  "We won't let you do anything _too_ barmy."

Hermione was next.  She took in Draco from head to toe, her eyes skimming over him.  "Ah, bloody hell," she said, and pressed her lips to the side of his mouth.

"Er.  Well," said Draco.

"Hermione!" Ron exclaimed.

"For luck!" she said.  "Just – you know.  Don't get killed, all right?"

"Do I get that kind of luck?" Ron wondered.

"Well," she said, and kissed him in just the same way, before turning to Harry.

"Whoa," Harry said, raising both of his hands in the air.  "Notreallynecessary."

Hermione leaned forward to kiss him delicately on the cheek.  "Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I _do_ feel loads better!"

"Then let's go steal a Horcrux," Draco said, adjusting his collar.

Draco irritably tugged at his clothing.  He wasn't sure why he was wearing such offal; the weave was clearly sub-par, and the black-on-black was off-putting.  He felt as though he were dressed for someone's funeral.  His hair felt funny, too: softer than usual, a bit more mobile than he liked.  A Malfoy must always be a Malfoy, without a hair out of place.

Funeral… now, why did that sound familiar?  Perhaps one of his father's old acquaintances had passed, and he was expected to make an appearance?  Odd, that; he couldn't seem to remember.

Meaningless. Here he was, on an important mission for the Dark Lord, and he was focussed on trivialities.  No; he must turn his mind to this singular task, and this task alone.  His aunt Bella, newly released from Azkaban, still understandably feared stepping out in public.  He was to check her vaults for her and bring back an item of surpassing importance and great history.

He could barely contain his excitement!

Too bad he had to be accompanied by Professor Snape, though: it was the one damper on being given a mission vital to the cause.  Truly, the days his father had promised were at hand: the days when Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers would step aside, and Purebloods would take their rightful place as leaders of men.  But Snape… Draco looked up at the sallow-faced man out of the corner of his eye.  Well, Snape was a halfblood, and blood would out, he thought, curling his lip as they walked down Diagon.  A sadder sample of wizardkind would be hard to find, he thought.  The poor, bedraggled thing looked even more common than usual today: older, thinner, sadder than before.

_Sadder?_   The thought didn't quite seem like it belonged.

Sorrier, more like.  His robes were a disgrace; Draco was ashamed to think that people might think that he and Snape were cut of a similar cloth.  But surely once the Dark Lord had risen to his rightful place as the head of all the British Isles (the world? Draco was unsure how far his ambitions reached) then halfbloods like Snape would also be set back into their own rightful place.

Yet perhaps when Draco became a leader of men, he would keep Snape at his side.  Loyalty ought to be rewarded, and Snape had been nothing if not loyal. 

Draco lost himself briefly in a rosy vision in which purebloods such as himself sat in the thrones of the world, halfbloods below them, Mugglelovers and Blood Traitors doing the most menial of tasks – all they were fit for, really – and Mudbloods… well.  He wouldn't mind having a Mudblood servant, certainly.  Granger'd do, for a start.  He'd like to see her slap him then!

Even so preoccupied, Draco couldn't help but notice how empty the streets were, how people cleared a path for him and for Snape.  Well.  How odd… not that it didn't seem _right_ ; it was just as things should be.  But it did seem… unusual.  When Draco commented on the emptiness of the streets, Snape replied,

"There are rumours of a coming storm."

Hmm.  Well, that certainly explained the way everyone was dashing to and fro, although not why they seemed to be dashing _away_ from Draco and Severus.  That was, until Draco spotted a familiar face in the crowd.

"Why look, sir," Draco said – it didn't _hurt_ to be polite to the man who was in charge of his Potions marks until he graduated.  "It's one of your students."

Snape looked up furtively.  "Come, Mister Malfoy; we don't have time to chat with one of your little friends.  We have more important matters to attend to…"

Draco huffed.  "Well, if you insist, only I do believe he's spotted us."

Professor Snape went quiet at his side.

"Come now, Professor, it's only _Longbottom_ ," Draco said, and then the young man was upon them, wand drawn.

"Don't do anything foolish, Mister Longbottom," Severus said.

"Sweet Merlin, you idiot, have you drawn your _wand_ on a professor?" Draco gawped.  "You'll be expelled!"

"Expelled?" Neville exclaimed.  _"Expelled?_ "

Professor Snape went quieter and stiller than Draco had ever known, and suddenly Draco knew that he wanted Professor Snape on his side in that new world; very much by his side and _on_ his side, oh, yes.

"Neville!" Augusta Longbottom Apparated directly from the doorway of Flourish and Blotts to Neville's side.  "Professor Snape," she said, slowly.  "Mister Malfoy.  Do… forgive my grandson.  He's not himself," she said, drawing herself upright, dignity in her every gesture, "in all the unpleasantness."

"He did it!" Neville shouted.  "He killed him!  And I won't be quiet about it, either!"

"Hush, you foolish child, or you shall get us both _killed_!" she hissed.

That seemed to bring Neville up short.  His wand hand wavered, drooped.

"I will thank you not to hurl unfounded accusations at my feet in the streets of Magical London, Mister Longbottom," Snape said in a quiet, controlled voice.  "Your imprecision in my class seems to have spilled out into your everyday existence.  What proof do you even have of such a claim, that you shout it aloud in broad daylight?"

"Everyone knows," Longbottom whispered.

Professor Snape looked truly infuriated, now.  "Everyone knows?  Is that so?  Well.  Far be it for me to deny such an overwhelmingly logical argument, with your reasoning laid out so clear.  I am still your Defense Professor, Mister Longbottom.  Fifty points from Gryffindor for egregiously foolish conduct, including _drawing your wand on a professor_."  He leaned towards Mrs Longbottom.  " _Keep a closer watch on your grandson, should you wish to keep him!_ " he hissed.

Then he strode away, pulling Draco along behind him.

"What on earth was _that_ , sir?" Draco exclaimed.  "What's happening?  Is Dumbledore _dead_?"

"Yes, indeed," Snape said, "although I am sorry you had to discover it that way."

"Sorry?" Draco whispered.  "Sorry?  Why should you be?  And Defense?  Are you our Defense Professor, now, sir?  Because that would be extraordinary."

Snape sighed.  "I do believe I am; felt the points go.  Funny, that.  She mustn't have changed it."

Draco snuck a look up at Snape's face.  Something was definitely _off_ about the other man.  "Longbottom certainly grew a lot over the summer," he said.  "A few centimeters, at the very least."

"People do grow up," Snape said.  "Focus on your objective, Draco.  We are here."

'Here' was Gringotts Bank: white marble steps, bronze doors, and a facade that towered over the other buildings at Diagon Alley.  Two goblins stood guard at the gates.  Draco strode up to them and they opened the doors, looking nervous: good.

He'd only been to Gringotts a handful of times at his father's side, and Lucius did not believe gawking befit a Malfoy.  Therefore, Draco took a good look around as they walked inside the small anteroom before the bank proper.

There were two, huge silver doors that stood between him and said bank. Inscribed on a plaque were the words:

 

 

_Enter, stranger, but take heed_

_Of what awaits the sin of greed_

_For those who take, but do not earn_

_Must pay most dearly in their turn_

_So if you seek beneath our floors_

_A treasure that was never yours_

_Thief, you have been warned, beware_

_Of finding more than treasure there._

 

 

For some reason, this gave him a bit of a case of the shivers.  Lucky for him, he wasn't there to steal, just to fetch something from his aunt's vault.

The silver doors opened to reveal a vast, marble hall.  Along one end was a long counter, also marble, manned by at least twenty different goblins on high stools.

Waiting was so… pedestrian.  Draco walked right up to one of the older goblins.  Not that there was a very long line.  Like every other spot in Diagon, it seemed oddly empty.

"Greetings, Mister Malfoy," it said.

"Yes, greetings, all that," Draco replied.  "I'm here to check on something of my aunt's."

"Your aunt's?  Mrs Lestrange's?" the goblin said, with a respectful degree of fear in its voice.

"The very same," Draco said.  "Here, I have her wand as a gesture of her good faith."  He laid the wand on the counter; the goblin picked it up and examined it.

"Mrs Lestrange has reported the wand stolen," the goblin said, eyeing him.

Draco rolled his eyes.  "Stolen?  The silly bint.  She was in Azkaban for years, you know, it might've scrambled something up inside her brain.  Well, there's no 'might have', is there?  _She gave it to me herself_ this morning, for this very purpose.  Merlin, how long ago did she report it stolen?"

The goblin looked a bit put off by Draco's patter.  "Weeks ago, sir."

"Well then, she must've found it again," Draco said, already feeling bored.  "Listen, do you really and truly wish me to go back to my mother's house and all our guests and tell them that you – and _who are you_ , by the way?"

"Griphook, sir," said the goblin.

"That you, Griphook, refused to let me, Draco Malfoy, have a look in my own aunt's vaults, in order to bring her something at her own request?"

"All your mother's… guests, sir?"

"Yes, my aunt, amongst others," Draco replied.  God, goblins were slow on the uptake.

Griphook conferred with another goblin a moment.  "Are you sure?" it asked the other.

"Are we sure _what_?" Draco snapped.  "I don't have all day.  Is there a supervisor I could speak to?"

"No, no, that won't be necessary," Griphook said, quickly.  "Not at all.  You see, Mrs Lestrange had very specific instructions about that particular vault…"

"Which were?" Draco sighed.

"Well.  Which were that only yourself or Mrs Malfoy should have access to them.  And that, otherwise… er… even _she_ ought not to be allowed within."

Draco tapped his foot.

"They're just very odd instructions, sir."

"Obviously she was worried about Polyjuice, you idiot," Draco snapped.  "It would take quite an intuitive leap for someone to decide that they ought to dress themselves up in _my_ or my _mother's_ skin to get at her things, wouldn't it?"

"Well… yes, sir."

"So perhaps she's not quite as mad as I had thought," Draco conceded.

"And this is…?" Griphook said, eyeing the man beside Draco with suspicion.

"And this is Professor Snape," Draco bit out, curt.  "He will be accompanying me.  In case this item is cumbersome.  Or dangerous."

"A bodyman.  I see, I see," said Griphook.  "Well, I suppose it can be allowed, considering the… nature.  Of the vault."

If Draco thought that Snape would object to being called a glorified footman, he was rapidly disabused.  Clearly, Snape saw the tendency of goblins to be obstreperous, and thought to hold his tongue.

Useful man.

But then, the rest of the goblin's dialogue caught up with him.  "N-nature of the vault?" Draco said.  "It isn't… _hazardous_ down there, is it?"

"Well.  No more than is necessary to protect your aunt's things, Mister Malfoy," Griphook assured him.  "Just the dragon.  But it's easy enough to take care of that."  He turned to the goblin who had whispered in his ear, before.  "Bring the Clankers!"

"Oh, we won't be needing those," Draco heard himself say, and wondered why, when what he wanted to say was, _JUST a dragon_?

_But that's horrible!_ said a distant memory.  A girl's voice.

Hermione Granger's?

Clearly, he was losing his mind.

"Oh, no, sir, they're absolutely necessary for all of our safety," the goblin assured him.

"You aren't _coming along_ , are you?" Draco said.  "I should like to have privacy."

"Not possible, sir.  At least, not until we arrive at the vault.  You shall need me to let you into and out of the vault –"

"That's why I've brought Professor Snape," Draco insisted.  " _He_ can let me out."

"But not in," the goblin insisted.  "That requires a handprint.  A _goblin_ handprint."

"Oh, very _well_ ," Draco said.  "Needs must, I suppose."  Still, _eurgh._   He could smell the goblin-stench from where he _stood_.  True, the creature _looked_ scrubbed and smartly dressed, but Draco knew all about goblins and their slimy, sneaking ways from his father.

A cart appeared at the very end of the long room.

"Am I meant to travel _inside_ of that?" Draco said, horrified.  "It looks as though it hasn't been cleaned since the bank _opened_.  I'm sure there've been _rats_."

" _Scourgify_ ," Snape said.

"Say, isn't that the werewolf?" Draco said, pointing rudely and not really caring.

"Severus Snape, what a surprise," said Remus Lupin, rather flatly.  "Are you headed down?  I'm here to inspect my own vault.  Suppose we share a cart?"

Draco expected Snape to scoff and wonder aloud that such a ragamuffin creature _had_ a vault, but oddly, Snape nodded.  "I don't see why not."

_I do!_ Draco thought, but it was too late to protest; perhaps Lupin was on their side.  It seemed a bit coincidental, now, all of them meeting here together this way.  Draco's suspicions were confirmed when the goblin eyed Lupin suspiciously as they clambered inside.  "Sir, your vault is all the way –"

"So, you're here to help us," Draco broke in.

The goblin rolled its eyes and subsided with a grumble, beginning to fiddle with some levers and knobs at the front of the cart.

Lupin turned to Snape.  "Did you…?" he said.

"No," Snape replied.

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it?" Draco inquired.  "All of us being here at once, your cordial attitude.  Finally found the right side out for yourself, have you?"

The goblin ignored them and set the cart in motion: with a screech of metal-on-metal, it pitched forward through two low doors, which snapped shut behind it.

"Er.  Yes," Lupin said, which seemed awfully straightforward.

"What made you change your mind?" Draco asked.  Although he couldn't care less, it was amusing to think about; it took one's mind off hurtling faster and faster down through the dark.  "Better dental?"

"I got sick of all my friends dying one at a time.  Always trusting the wrong people," Lupin replied.  "I figured this way, at least I would know not to trust anyone."

"Well, that's gone and ruined _my_ day," Draco said.  "Keep it to yourself, next time."

Lupin shrugged; Draco could _feel_ it where they were unfortunately pressed together.  He'd always hated being touched.  "You asked," Lupin said.

"Couldn't you shove over?" Draco said.  "It's not like there's anyone _back_ there."

"Not while the cart is moving," Lupin said, patient.

Draco had hated that voice when Lupin was his professor: that measured, _you'll-come-to-the-answer-eventually_ voice.  He'd used it with Draco a lot.

"Is that truly the reason you defected?" Snape inquired.  "Fascinating."

"It's the reason I'm here with you lot," Lupin replied.  "I wouldn't cast any stones, Severus.  Seen your imaginary friend, lately?  Still giving you advice?"

Draco didn't know what the conversation was about, but he knew he didn't like grown-ups speaking over his head.  "Boring," he announced.  "When are we meant to…"

But then Draco caught sight of something extraordinary: the Dragon.

" _Stupefy_ ," Snape said; " _Lumos_."

"Hey!" Draco exclaimed when he caught sight of the goblin slumped over in the cart.  "What's that all about?  I thought you were Stupefying _him_ ," he added, jerking his head over towards Lupin.

"Don't be any more foolish than you can help," Snape snapped.  "Lupin is One of Us; the goblin, however, is not.  This object of Bellatrix's is for Death Eater eyes only."

"Oh," Draco said.  "Well."  He adjusted his cloak and tunic, then frowned.  "What about getting into the vault?  And past the dragon?"

Snape held up a withered goblin's paw and waved it about.

"Ugh!  _Gross_ ," said Draco.

" _Please_ tell me you did not get that off of a living specimen," Lupin added.  For once, Draco was in complete agreement.

Snape scoffed.  "Don't be ridiculous.  I got it in Knockturn."

"Which still begs the question," Lupin muttered.

"As for the dragon…"

Draco looked up again to spy the gigantic creature.  It was a bit disappointing, really: sad, flopping wings with light tears in the membrane; scales the colour of spoilt milk, white and red and blue with lack of light and exercise; an iron shackle around each of its enormous hindquarters, chained to giant pegs struck into the ground.  Vicious slashes stood scar-pink against its snout and ears.  Giant eyes, rheumy and half-blind, half-regarded them.  It blinked, and emitted a querulous, frightened sound.

Draco swallowed.  Too far away to hurt him, the creature was frightening, fascinating… and perhaps the saddest thing he'd ever seen.  _Like Snape_ , he thought, and then swept the thought away.  How was Snape like this thing tethered in the dark, exactly?  The dragon was chained in place and dying of it, dying of lack of light and air and _life_ , sworn to protect something solely until someone else arrived to carry it away...

"Do they _have_ to keep it chained up down here all the time?" he asked.  "I mean – l-look at its feet.  They're _bloody_."

"What do you care?" Snape said.

At first, Draco thought the comment was meant in the usual sense; he had his lips parted to snarl back.  But then he realized it was a genuine question: what did Draco Malfoy care about dragons chained up in the dark?

"Nothing," he said, sticking both hands deep into his pockets.  "What business is it of mine?"

"Just so," said Snape, although Lupin had turned to stare.

"Only, you know.  If they wanted to keep the dragon for a long while, they might as well have looked after it," Draco groused, the old dragon's great eye still fixed on his own.  "It only makes sense, monetarily.  They'll have to purchase a new one at this rate, this one's all used up."

Snape shrugged.  "Dragons can survive almost interminably with little to no care."

"And so can you, I'm sure," Draco snapped, and then turned away, aghast.  _This is a simple fetch-it mission, you idiot_ , he told himself, all his self-congratulation melting into doubt.  _Can't you manage that much?_

"What are we waiting for, anyway?" he snapped.

"Shh," said Lupin.  "Listen."

There was gentle music coming from everywhere and nowhere, and approaching the dragon.  The dragon stayed curled in place in silent watchfulness, eyes narrowed with distrust, fire waiting to be unleashed.  But once the singing – it _was_ singing, Draco was almost sure – once it stopped, it was replaced with low, gentling murmurs in a soothing male voice.  _Shh_ , said the voice, _there, old man, there, now,_ the voice said over and over again.

_What IS it?_ Draco thought, but dared not even whisper, for fear of breaking the spell.

For a moment, he thought that the Dragon Tamer's spell – or whatever it was – was going to fail.  The dragon took in a full breath, looking like it was going to fry the entire hallway to a crisp.  But then, it curled back on itself with a horrible screech as though someone had stabbed it.  The noise shot through Draco's chest like a blade, and he shuddered.  He knew, without having to ask, that the great beast had given in not because it believed the voice's promise of comfort and love, but because it had given up on freedom from pain.  He knew as if the dragon had told him.

"Keep close, you young fool!" Snape whispered, chivvying him along until they reached a stone depression; Snape fumbled the goblin's paw, pressed it to the cave edifice, and Bellatrix Lestrange's vaults opened up before them.

Draco didn't allow himself to gape around Severus Snape, but he wished he could, he really did.  There was treasure everywhere, floor-to-ceiling treasure: goblets, golden coin, a suit of armour woven from silverscale that he recognized by description: it had belonged to Boudicca, at least according to his dear auntie.  She was mad, of course, but looking at the thing, sparkling like some glorious star, even in the half-light of Snape's _Lumos_ , he could almost believe it.  Then, he caught sight of the dragonskins.  They'd have to be from hatchlings, he supposed, in order to fit in the vault.  _Yuck._

"Impeccable taste," Snape said with a fastidious curl to his lip.

"You've left Lupin out to guard?" Draco said.  "Suppose he locks us inside."

"That would not be in his best interest," Snape said, just as the entryway to the vault closed behind them with a final slam of stone-on-stone.  "…that's Charmed," Snape said, but in a far less certain tone than before.  However, Snape's uncharacteristic expression of anxiety melted in the face of several shelves of potions and potion ingredients in gorgeous crystalline bottles studded with gemstones.  "Fools," he said aloud, "half of these are priceless, half useless, and all under a shoddy preservation spell that will dissolve in a few years' time…"  Then he jerked his head in Draco's direction.  "Perhaps needless to say, Mister Malfoy, but touch _nothing_ , even if you believe you have found what we are looking for."

Draco, as enchanted with possibly-Boudicca's suit of armour as he was, was not inclined to touch any of his aunt's things.  His ability to sense ambient magic was novice at best, and yet the _evil_ that seemed pressed into every object in the room yet gave him pause.  He was aware of sweat beading along the back of his spine, the desire, fiercer by the moment, to depart.  He tried to tell himself that it was the darkness, the dragon barely leashed outside, but couldn't quite convince himself.  There was something here – multiple things, maybe – that were very powerful, and very Dark.

"I… yes," he responded in a faint voice.  "I won't.  Sir."

"Swear, Mister Malfoy."

Draco regained some of his fire in the face of this blatant disrespect.  "I'm no fool, no matter what you seem to believe.  _Sir_."

"Hrm," Snape said.  Then, "no, I don't believe so."

"Who are you – was that for me?" Draco said, scanning the shelves for – for what?  Immediately an image popped to mind: a cup.  A cup, golden, handles, bearing a badger.

Odd how it was nearly fever-bright in his mind's eye.  Bellatrix must have implanted it as a memory.

But he didn't remember her doing so.

"Hmm?  Was what for you?" Snape inquired, still searching.

"Nothing," Draco said.  Great.  Now his only anchor in this difficult situation was behaving in a manner distinctly out of character.  "Are you sure it's here, sir?" he asked.

"It ought to… ah," Snape said.  "Look up."

Draco moved his gaze up, up, and higher up until he could see that the tallest shelf at the back of the entire trove held what they were looking for.  "Ah!" he exclaimed, and started forward.

" _Freeze_ ," Snape barked in the voice that anyone who'd done a Potions lab with him would recognize, and immediately respond to.

Draco did just as ordered, and more automatically than he liked.  "What.  What?"

"You're about to touch the golden plate at your wrist.  Withdraw," Snape ordered.

Draco, gulping, transferred his gaze down to find that his sleeve was brushing against a stack of plates gilded in gold leaf.  He leaned back until he was surrounded by a careful foot of empty space in every direction.

"Can't you feel it?  There's a curse on the entire vault," Snape said.

Draco nodded.  "Yes.  On everything, and on – the object."  He darted a glance Snape's way.

Professor Snape withdrew dragonhide gloves from his pocket and put them on.  " _Accio Cup_ ," he said.

Nothing happened.

He shrugged.  "Worth a go," he said, but over his shoulder.

"Professor Snape," said Draco, "I'm over here."

"What?"

"I'm – I'm the only one here, why…?" Draco began.  Snape turned a fearsome, quelling gaze on him, but Draco's anxiety was spiking.  The Cup wasn't just powerful, it was Evil, anyone had to be able to tell just from being in the same _room_ as the ghastly thing.  Surely, Snape didn't intend to hand it over to his mad auntie, who… would hand it over to the Dark Lord.  Unless Snape had totally lost his mind, but that now appeared a distinct possibility.

"What does the Cup do?" Draco said as casually as he could manage, while Snape stared at the thing, clearly planning on how to get it down without touching anything else.

" _Do_?" Snape echoed.  "Do?  It does nothing, Mister Malfoy, save hold wine."

"It's highly protected," Draco offered.  "I mean, we needed Aunt Bella's wand and a goblin paw, and there's a dragon, and now everything in this room curses you if you touch it," he said.  "Not to mention the fact that we've been sent here to fetch it, and it alone."

"The fewer questions you ask, the better it will be for the both of us," Snape said, and for once he sounded perfectly sincere.

"It makes me nauseous.  I don't like to look at it," Draco blurted.

"Nauseated?  Really," Snape said, turning to face him.  "Yes, it is odd," he added, to no one at all.  Tilting his head once more at the Cup, he Levitated up to grab it in his dragonhide gloves.

Immediately, the Cup turned a fiery colour in Professor Snape's hands; it didn't seem to bother him through the gloves, but Draco could see the Cup beginning to _glow_ with it.  A split second later Snape dropped it so that it clattered to the floor.

Only Snape _hadn't_ dropped the Cup, Draco realized; he was still holding it, only it kept spitting up _copies of itself_ until the floor began to crowd with them.

"Run!" Snape shouted, and Draco whirled in place.

Too excitedly: a sword clattered to the floor at his feet and immediately began glowing and splitting, too.  Draco leapt over the sword(s!) and ran for the mouth of the cave, banging on the exit.

Lupin yanked him out by the shirt collar, Snape following with the Cup clenched in both fists, still molten.  But at least it was no longer dropping copies of itself on the ground; that spell appeared to be limited to the vault itself.  Draco could hear the shift of metal-on-metal behind him, and wondered when the duplicating gold would burst through the stone facade.

"Are you all right?" Lupin gasped.  "I heard…"

"Fine," Snape said.  "Careful, don't touch the thing; it's still hot."

Lupin looked at it.  "Doesn't exactly look like a powerful weapon, does it?"

"I knew it!" Draco crowed.

"Yes, yes, you're very perspicacious," Snape said tiredly.  "Come along, let us pile back inside and wake our friend."

But the Goblin was gone.

* * *

A/N: A little early this time, because I skipped a week guys!

On the subject of reviews.

I must particularly thank those of you who review each chapter as it comes: I genuinely appreciate everything you guys send. I must also continue to beg for the same, as reviews are part of the reason I post stories publicly. If you enjoyed the chapter, I hope you'll let me know what worked for you; if not, I hope you'll let me know what didn't.

I'd love to hear what you think of Draco's transformation and the dragon, especially. I also genuinely enjoy (and sometimes employ) suggestions as to what is to happen, next.

Some notes on the chapter itself.

There are so many holes in the very idea of the Thief's Downfall that it's hard to write around them. There's a waterfall that cures _Imperio_?  Why isn't everyone who works at the Ministry forced to walk through it every day before they begin work? It doesn't destroy the Cloak? Why not? It's all very arbitrary. I made it that Bill isn't entirely correct regarding how the curse works, here; but that's because others continued his work after he was gone, in my version.

For your reading pleasure, here's a lovely, plotty rec:

_All Life is Yours to Miss_ , by Saras_Girl on ao3.

A lovely story in which Harry and Draco are professors at Hogwarts after the war. Remnants of their adolescent rivalry have disastrous, unforeseen consequences, causing Draco to acquire Harry's responsibilities at the school and changing his life in a dramatic manner. This, like most of Saras_Girl's fic, is a gorgeous slow-burn romance story that revolves around questions of personal identity, and the conviction that living a half-life is no life at all. Saras-Girl paints all of her side-characters with a warm, affectionate brush, and Ron and Hermione stand out in a way they often don't in H/D romances.

Go and enjoy!

Keep reading, keep writing, everyone!

-K


	23. Wolf

"Oh," said Lupin, which Draco found phenomenally stupid.

" _Point Me Griphook_ ," Snape hissed, sticking the cup inside a leather sack at his belt.

"Marvelous," said Lupin, then reached out to snag Snape's arm.  "Severus, this isn't worth it!  He knows these caverns far better than we… all the best places to hide… to set up an ambush…"

"We were meant to come in and out unseen, disturbing no one!  No one was to know!" Severus hissed in return, loosening Lupin's grip with a jerk of his arm.  "Draco, remain here!" he shouted, and was off and running, his wand rapidly a distant point in the complete blackness of night, Lupin close at his heels.

" 'Draco, remain here!'" he echoed grimly.  "Certainly, Professor.  I'll just stay here, in the dark… all alone…"

This venture hadn't been what he'd expected it to be, not one jot.  For one thing, he ought to have been in charge, being the only one in the group of a pureblood line, but that hadn't been the case; and Draco could hardly blame the others.  He'd fallen back into obeying Snape and Lupin because they were both his old professors.  Draco had never tried to wrest control away from them, not really, save in those initial instants when he _had_ to, when he was the one in charge of his aunt's vaults.

The Cup itself hadn't given him the feeling of promise and triumph he expected he'd feel in the presence of a powerful Dark object.  Malevolence pulsed off of the cup like a poison.  Draco imagined that darkness seeping into Snape's hipbone, his muscles, his blood.

Now Draco was all alone down in darkness and ruin, he thought, _what am I doing here?_

_This isn't fun.  This isn't glorious.  It's cold and damp and smells of scale-rot…_

It smelled of scale-rot, as it happened, because the dragon had finally decided to come a bit closer to investigate now that Draco was alone, and the darkness had covered its approach.  When Draco blinked, he realized that he was facing a giant head that was the size of his entire body, an eye socket the size of his skull.

"Um," Draco breathed, as the dragon leaned in closer and took a huge breath.

Then, he remembered the Charm, speaking softly and singing.

"T-there, there," he whispered, and dared lift a hand to place it on the giant snout.  " _Merlin!_ " he whispered, feeling the creature below his hands, like his snakeskin belt, only pulsing, alive, _warm,_ before trying again.  "Shhh, no one's hurting you," he said, suddenly flashing back to hippogriffs and his miserable lack of success with such creatures in the past.

Sure enough, the dragon's great eye narrowed in dislike, and it took in a deep breath that sucked Draco's fringe into his eyes.

And then, Ron Weasley appeared.

Draco could not have been more surprised if Celestina Warbeck had arrived with a trio of backup singers.  " _Merlin's bloody–!"_

"Not.  Another.  Word," Weasley whispered, coming up alongside him.  "Not unless you want to be _dinner_."  He walked straight up to the skittish creature, full-on so that the great beast could see him coming, and lay both hands and his forehead against the dragon's skull.

It was a picture Draco was certain would stay with him until the day he died.  He could never imagine showing that kind of fearlessness: for a moment of searing jealousy, he understood just why Potter had taken Ronald Weasley's hand and not his.

The dragon let out a whoosh of (not superheated) breath: a sigh.

"Hush, now," Ron whispered.  "Come on, Malfoy, help me."

"It doesn't l-like me," Draco stammered.

"Shut it and help," Ron repeated, dragging Draco forward.  "'Course he doesn't like you.  You're afraid.  Breathe.  Put your hands on him, show him where you are.  That's it."  And then Ron closed his eyes and began to sing in a soft, low voice.

Draco kept his eyes on the dragon the entire time.  It sighed a great, hot sigh, like an oversized chimney-bellows, and placed its head at their feet.

"Um.  What.  The bloody fuck," Draco whispered.

"Help me," Ron Weasley said again, and Draco followed after him, as though pulled.  "Get this shackle.  I've got the other one."

"Are you _mad_?" Draco hissed.

Ron shot him a Very Serious look.

"You are.  Everyone is.  _I am_ ," Draco stammered.

"Unlock the shackle.  I'm going to stay by him."

Draco gulped and shook his head and still _found himself doing as he was told._   "I – am I under a curse?"

Ron's own head poked around from where he was stroking the head of the dragon, which still looked nervous, to Draco's own nervous eye.  "A geas," he replied.  "Promise not to hurt you, but you're on my side for the foreseeable future."

Draco's mind whirred furiously as he sidled around to the shackles; this didn't appear to bother the dragon, whose neck was long enough that it could easily twist it about to peer at Draco's continued progress.

"Oh," he said, aloud.

The shackles were a mess of blood, bone, and scar tissue.  The dragon must have grown up in the bowels of the bank: the shackles had cut right into the flesh over the years, and the flesh had partly healed over them.  Of _course_ the dragon had grown up, here – the cave was far too small for it to have entered at the size it was, now.

"I, uh.  Healing Spells…" said Draco.  He'd never been very good at them.

And Granger popped out of thin air.

"Merlin, how _awful_ ," she said, peering down at the dragon's claws.  She drew her wand.  "This is going to _hurt,_ I think, but I'll keep up the numbing spells and maybe…"  And she set to work, muttering to herself.

"What… is _happening_?" Draco whispered.

"We're here to help you," Hermione said to Draco, looking up.

There she was, in the bowels of the bank, robes pooled around her as she knelt by the gigantic dragon's claw, half as large as her body, looking up through spills and snarls of long brown hair.  She looked unusually grown-up, although there was no mistaking her for anyone but Hermione Granger.

For a ridiculous moment, he had the urge to kiss her.  But then, she turned back to the delicate work of extricating the dragon from its chains.

"T-they're going to come back," Draco heard himself say.  "Snape, and Lupin.  They'll find the goblin – hopefully _before_ it informs all the others it was Stupefied…"  _And then they'll kill you_ , he realized.  _No simple 'Stupefy'_ _for Harry Potter's friends.  Maybe they'll be captured and taken back to Lestrange…_   "You've got to go," he said, grabbing for Hermione's arm.  "You've got to _run_."

She looked up again, shook him off.  " _Do_ I?" she whispered, scanning his features.  "Hmm."

He drew his wand, pointed it at her.  "This isn't a joke.  I'm a Death Eater.  Snape's a Death Eater.  I don't know what you're doing here, but –"

"Easy, Malfoy," and suddenly Potter was blocking the way.

"I should've known you'd be hidden somewhere around here," Draco spat.  "Merlin, Potter, haven't put them in enough danger already?  Robbing Gringotts sound like a lark?  _Get.  OUT!_ " he shouted, and shot a Stinging Hex Potter's way.

" _Protego!_ " Potter incanted.  "Malfoy, just _listen_ –"

"Listen?" Draco echoed, forced into a half-hysterical laugh.  "Listen.  To you?"

"Yes, to me," Potter said, and there was something strange written in the lines of his face.  It was not an expression he had ever before seen on Potter.  "You're with us.  You're here _with us_.  We were in the back of the cart all along.  You were supposed to walk right back out with the Cup, and bring it to us, to _our side_ …"

A dozen things fell into place at once.  Longbottom being taller.  Diagon practically empty.  The way people stepped around he and Professor Snape, as though they might hex them on the spot.  The fearful look on Augusta Longbottom's face, the horror lodged there.  Lupin.

Lupin hadn't defected.  _Snape had._

Or just Draco had?  Sworn an oath of fealty to hold it in place.  Not to Potter, oddly enough: to Weasley.  He could _feel_ it, now he knew it was there, just out of the brush of his everyday awareness.  Could it be he'd refused to swear it to Potter?  But now Potter was staring at him, looking earnest.  They must've come to _some_ kind of understanding.  Draco's wand hand twitched down, but then –

"Got it!" Granger exclaimed, and one of the shackles fell away in a crash of iron, blood, and skin.

The dragon – _oh, MERLIN_ – reared up in the air in distress, and Draco was sure they were done for.  Stalactites shattered, rained down on the party below.  Potter erected a shield over their heads with another _Protego!_ and they bounced harmlessly away, but the dragon stamped its injured foot as if to increase the circulation.  A wash of blood slapped Draco in the face.

"Omigosh, _dragon's blood!_ " said Granger, looking as though she wished she could take a sample.

Potter raised his wand, pointed it at Draco…

…and the blood disappeared.

Draco blinked.  The hair gel also seemed to have disappeared.  Potter followed this up with a nonverbal _Sortis_ , but he could recognize the wand motion.  Weirdly kind.  Oddly proprietary.

Draco was aware of Weasley, still calming the dragon, which eventually settled itself back down, pillowing its great head on its front claws, and Granger moved to the other foot.  But meanwhile, Potter had drawn very close.  "You lowered your wand," he said.  "Are you sure you meant to?"

What an odd question.  And what a strange expression on Potter's face to go along with it, like Draco was some kind of new species he didn't recognize in his Care of Magical Creatures text.  Draco decided to counter it with a question of his own.

" _Obliviate_?" he said.  " _Imperio_?  Why don't I remember anything?"

Potter blinked.  "It's… we agreed.  You agreed.  That it'd be easier to get down here this way."

"How clever of me," Draco said.

"And so you accept it.  Just like that," Potter said.

"It's not just like anything.  Much as I might despise the fact, all the evidence is on your side," he replied, just to watch Potter's face do some expression-gymnastics again.  Draco noticed the other boy kept his wand out.

"But what if we just made it _look_ that way?" Potter said, something rather desperate in his voice.  "I mean, what if we made you _think_ –?"

Draco shook his head, and Potter's words stumbled to a halt.  "Don't be daft, Potter, you were clearly trying to make me think I _wasn't_ on your side.  I don't credit you with enough deviousness to accomplish a triple-cross."  His eyes narrowed.  " _Should_ I?"

Potter shook his own head.  "No.  But –"

There was a hollow boom that interrupted his words, that silenced even Ron's whispers and the dragon's pained rustling as Hermione worked on the second shackle.  It was followed by a second boom, and then another, faster and faster.

Granger moaned something that sounded like, " _drums in the deep!_ ", and then, if Draco focussed, he could hear the far-off clank of metal and the shouting of goblins.

"Griphook sounded the alarm," said Potter, utterly needlessly.  "Ron, is there another way out of here?"

"Yes," Ron said, "two.  But we're going to have to pick one and hope it isn't full of goblins!  Come on, Hermione!"

But Granger was shaking her head, still spelling at the second shackle.

"We can come back!" Potter shouted.  "If we don't leave here now, it'll be too late!"

Granger's eyes were filling with tears, and she was using language so filthy that Draco found room alongside the wash of adrenaline to feel reluctantly impressed.

 _On their side.  You're on their side_ , Draco thought, and tried to figure what he would do if he really _were_.

He ran for Granger, who did not even look up: her gaze was so full of intent concentration.  He slid to the ground beside her, drew his wand.

Made one, giant cut of flesh all the way around the shackle.  _Yanked_ with his magic.  The shackle fell to the cave floor in a spray of skin and gore.

The dragon reared, trumpeting like a dying thing.  Blood splattered he and Granger head-to-toe as the dragon tramped all four, giant feet, vibrating Draco's teeth in his head.  Draco wrenched Granger backwards and then to her feet; and took off for Weasley, whose presence he could _feel_ in the dark, dashing in between the pain-maddened dragon's stamping appendages.

"Runrunrunrunrun!" he shouted, and then the four of them were: through a tiny aperture in the bowels of the bank that led to a low, narrow crack and a narrower corridor, Hermione chanting, _Muffliato, Protego totalis, Salvio hexia, Cave inimicum,_ and the Disillusionment charm as she dashed forward, a constant litany under her breath.

Draco wondered at his decision to join up with these idiots.  So much talent.

So little planning.

Although they seemed to be getting away with it.  The aperture was narrow, making it easy to keep track of where Weasley was as they darted through and forward, or even understand that Weasley was a bit panicked, but keeping it together.

Wait, no; that was Potter.

 _What_?

A magical connection to Potter, too, then.  Different to the other.  Woven from ropes of Memory charms.  It was like nothing he'd ever seen or felt in his life.  If he followed one thread down to its source –

_Harry._

_A wash of green fire – fire, everywhere, surrounding him, a cloud of heat and dryness and warm sparks against his skin that somehow refused to burn, that contained the_ essence _of Potter –_

"Draco!" Potter whispered, elbowing him.

Draco blinked the vision away before realizing that Potter was in his personal space again.  "Just – discovered… _that_ ," he said, and Potter nodded as though that had been a real sentence instead of a jumble of broken words.  Potter's hand fluttered above his shoulder again, then withdrew, as though he didn't dare make contact.

The sound of marching feet grew suddenly louder, and the company froze.  Granger and Weasley clutched at each other, and Potter's hand, sure now, flew to Weasley's upper arm to grip it.

But the sound came from above them, not before or behind; there must be a whole warren of tunnels, Draco realized, motioning the others to hush.  If they were quiet, they might continue to creep forward.  Granger continued to whisper the litany of spells, a breathy counterpoint to the _thump-thump-thump_ of goblin feet above.

The sound stopped directly over their heads.

"Dunno why we's goin' this way," came a voice.  "Ain't nobody even knows this way's _here_ , does they?"

 _"Muffliato, Protego totalis, Salvio hexia,_ " whispered Hermione.

"Well," said a second, "feel free to go back and explain _that_ to the shareholders of the bank, how _unlikely_ you thought it that anyone might know this passage, and that's how they got away!"

The first goblin grumbled to itself.  "Ain't meanin' that, an' you knows it," it replied.  "Jest… we get all the rough jobs, doesn't we.  Ain't no glory in wandering down a dark hole with nothing interestin' in it."

"We can't all earn the glory of capturing Severus Snape," the second chuckled.  "And a werewolf, too."

"A werewolf?"

"Sure as sure, a werewolf.  You can smell it on them, if you have a nose as I do, Grookshank."

Grookshank snorted.  "Reckons theys get a bit of a surprise, don't get him to Azkaban fast enough."

"Well, and that's a problem for wizards, say I," said the other.

Some muttering and grumbling followed in what Draco soon realized was the goblins' own, gutteral language, followed by a rasp of ugly laughter, like metal sliding against metal.

"Which is why we ought to be getting backs, hasn't we?" Grookshank added.  "Soon enough, yes, the problems takes care of itself."

"Eh… you're right, Grook.  There isn't anything or anyone here.  Hasn't been in centuries…"

The _thump-thump-thump_ of goblin-feet faded.

Hermione dragged at Weasley's arm.  "They've got Snape and Remus.  We've got to go back."

"Go _back_?" Ron groaned.

"We can't leave Snape…" Potter said, under his breath.

"Why not?" Draco said.

Everyone turned to stare.

"No, seriously.  Snape's probably just fine on his own," Draco said.  "He's probably got twelve escape plans.  It's you three we have to worry about."

Potter exchanged an odd look with Weasley.

"What?" he barked.  "Am I really so different that you have to keep making eyes at each other?  We've got more important things to think about than my _attitude!_ "

"It's more how much you _haven't_ changed that's weird," Ron said.  "Coupled with the little things that _have_."

"Look, they don't know how many of us there are," Granger went on.  "For all they know, it was just Snape, Lupin, and Draco.  We could take them by surprise."

"The question is: do you trust Snape?" Draco said.

" _Hey_ ," Potter growled.

"Remember who you're speaking to, and under what circumstances," Draco cut in.  "That isn't a rhetorical query as to your _loyalties_ , Potter.  I mean it as a genuine question.  Do you trust him to look after himself, or not?"

Potter frowned, considering the question.  "I trust him to try to save the Horcrux," he said, slowly.  "Not necessarily himself."

"All right, then," said Hermione, nodding.

"Besides all that," Ron said, "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's will _know_ about Snape if the goblins tell him, no matter what he's suspected before.  He'll burn heaven and earth to get at a traitor.  We'll have to move fast."  He turned to Draco.  "And c'n I have my wand back, please?"

Draco fumbled in his pockets.  "I don't have an extra –"

Ron slipped his hand into Draco's inside pocket and claimed _Bellatrix Lestrange's_ wand.  "Thanks."

No one else seemed to find it odd, Ron Weasley using Lestrange's wand.  Briefly, Draco considered asking if one of them could restore him so he'd quit being _surprised by everything_ , but the idea of Potter, or Weasley, or even the brilliant _Granger_ with her sticky fingers muddling about in his head gave him the absolute heaves.  Besides that, he was relatively certain that it would take time they didn't have.

"How long you reckon before they discover you set their dragon free?" Weasley said.

"How long do you 'reckon' before the dragon _realizes_ it's free?" Draco returned.  "It's been down there its whole life.  It may be happy to be free of the shackles, but how much would you like to bet that it curls up just where it was and goes to sleep?  If you had any Galleons to bet, that is," he tacked on.

"Back to the poverty jokes," Weasley said.  "Can't say I've missed them."

Potter rolled his eyes.  "If you're implying we could use the dragon to free Snape, somehow…"

"The dragon could be used as a distraction, of course," said Draco.

Ron nodded.  "Run amongst the goblins, create some much-needed havoc.  We could make _sure_ it can escape the chamber.  Clear a bit of room in the rock."

"And do what in the chaos?" Hermione said.  "We'd have just as much trouble running around, _looking_ for Snape."  She slapped herself on the forehead.  "Oh, _Merlin_ ," she whispered.  " _POINT ME SNAPE,"_ she ordered her wand so viciously that it spun in a whoosh to quiver, like a hound dog on point.  "Okay.  Find Snape; find Lupin.  Set the dragon free to create a distraction.  What could go wrong?"

"That's the spirit," Weasley said.  "You should still keep on with your concealment spells, Hermione.  Harry can do _Point Me_.  Draco, could you do _Point Me Remus Lupin_?  Who knows if they've separated them."

"And what will _you_ do, pray tell?" Draco said.

"Clear the way for the dragon," Ron said grimly.  "Come on."

The four crept back down through their escape route, Draco cursing himself the whole way; although he knew, too, that part of him was very glad that the others had insisted they go back.  He wasn't sure he'd be able to live with himself if he'd really gotten someone killed, however indirectly.

Many times, they had to freeze in place as goblins passed by them in tunnels that skirted theirs, huddling in terrified silence.  In the dark, and the rushing forward, and the sudden, punctuated cessation of movement, Draco lost all track of how long they'd been in crouched in the dark.

Things were a lot more equitable than he would have expected, even in this sort of emergency.  Sometimes, Granger ordered them about: _hang back, I think I hear something_ ; _hold on_ ; _can't we move any faster?_   Other times, it was Weasley: _now, when I get there, wherever your wands say to go, you go.  Don't wait for me; we'll meet at Grimmauld._   Then, he turned to Draco and made him repeat _the Order of the Phoenix is at Twelve, Grimmauld Place,_ three times.  It was Potter less often than he'd have thought.  Potter was quiet by nature, or quiet in extremis; it was hard to say.  But when he offered suggestions, the other two listened.  And they turned to Draco, too, reflexively, and listened to him even without the buffer of politeness in place.

Did he have them _fooled_?  Was he really a double-agent, and they didn't know?

Did it matter, just now?

They paused at the mouth of the tunnel.

 _"Point Me Severus Snape-_ "

" _Point Me Remus Lupin-_ "

Potter's and Draco's wands spun to point in the same direction.

"Thank goodness for small favours," Granger said.  She turned to Weasley.  "Good luck," she said, and squeezed him, quickly.

Ron clapped Potter on the shoulder.  "Be right back," he said.  He strode over to Draco and clapped an arm on his shoulder, too, leaning close so the others could not hear.  "You really are one of us.  Don't wander."

And then he was trotting off in the direction of the dragon's figure in the distance, which looked less ferocious from this far away, like a dragon in a painting.

Then, "Come _on_!" Granger was shouting, and they were running again, across the giant gloom of empty space; Granger cast a magical lasso that allowed them to hold to one another in the dark, risking no _Lumos_.  The dragon loomed in the distance, a paleness against the shadow.  Draco could make out a small figure before it, wand raised: Ron.

A surge of admiration lodged itself somewhere in Draco's breastbone like a clenched fist.  He might not understand why he was with Potter or Granger, yet, but he knew why he followed Ronald Weasley.

The figure of the dragon loomed closer, now.  Draco wondered if Snape and Lupin were close by, simply cowering in the dark.  No tunnels emerged from the black, only rough cave walls, studded here and there with a torch sconce, torchless and unlit.  Then, "Professor!" Potter whispered, and took off running.

Draco could see, now, if he squinted: Professor Snape, close to the rails that led back up to the bank proper.  They were approaching the spot where they'd started, the mouth of Bellatrix's vault, and Snape was standing at the closed entrance, robes and hair dripping.

Draco joined them in a run, Hermione still casting privacy spells around them, and then " _Finite incantatem!_ " so that Snape could see them all.

"He's in the vault," Snape rasped, sounding like he'd been shouting for hours.

"What?  Remus?" Harry gaped.  "Open it!  Open it up!"

" _It won't_!" Snape shouted.  "He snatched the goblin's paw from me and shoved me to the other side!"

"W-why would he –?" Potter stammered.

"We escaped from the goblins easily," Snape was saying, faster and more distressed than Draco had ever heard him, " _Stupefy_ and _Obliviate_ , and then we were about to look for you when Lupin went very still, and then took off for the vault!"

" _Remus!_ " Potter shouted, while Granger cast _Muffliato_ in a circle over them all.  "Remus, come _out_!"

"Has he lost his _mind_?" Draco sputtered.  "Why won't he?  Can't he hear us?"

"It's stone, but he must hear me shouting," Snape said.  "I've been calling for ten minutes.  He's unmoved; he's gone mad.  I – I don't know what to do!"

This admission seemed to hang in the air.

"Get another goblin," said Harry.  "Get him out!"

Snape nodded wordlessly, and dashed off, leaving splashes of water in his wake.

At that point, the dragon reared, trumpeted its triumph.  "There's our distraction," Draco said, but Potter and Granger were clinging to each other, trembling.

"Think, think, _think_ ," Granger was chanting under her breath.  "Why would he…?"  Granger let out a gasp that sounded more like a sob.  "Snape was _wet,_ Harry, soaked from head to toe!  Don't you see?  The _Thief's Downfall_ , he and Remus were caught in the _Thief's Downfall!_   And someone's revised it so it works on _potions, too._ "

A clatter sounded from the other side of the vault.  Followed by another clatter… and another.  And another.

"No.  NO!  REMUS!" Potter shouted, banging on the wall.  "Open the door!  _Please!_ "

Draco didn't question what the Thief's Downfall or potions had to do with anything.  He cast about for something to do, some way to be of _use_.  Like Snape, he could find nothing to help Lupin; nothing to comfort the others.

Hermione was screaming.  "Professor!  Professor, please!  There's _time_!  We can brew it again!  We _can_ , oh, _please_ don't –"

The clamouring of metal on metal was deafening, now.  Draco was no longer sure Lupin could hear her above it all.

Snape rushed forward, Levitating a Stunned goblin behind him.  He pressed the unconscious creature's hand to the door, and it spilled open.

Molten coin, swords, armour, goblets, gold plates; it all spilled out at their feet.  Hermione screamed, and Potter shouted as the metal touched their exposed skin.

 _How could anyone have survived that?_ Draco thought, leaping backwards, but Snape was wading in, not wincing, not screaming, throwing things one way and another with his hands covered in Dragonhide gloves.  Eventually, he found Lupin's hair, and tugged.

Draco quickly looked away, and Hermione let out a choked sob; but Snape lifted Lupin up over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and clambered out of the room, even as welts formed on his arms and legs before Draco's eyes, burning holes through his robes.

Potter was a wreck, sobbing and shaking, but Granger gathered him up in her arms and prodded him forward, Draco trailing behind.

He could _feel_ Ron approaching, his work with the dragon done.  To his credit, he didn't ask for details once he clapped eyes on Remus's mutilated face, just joined Hermione on Harry's other side to help support his friend.  Granger was weeping openly, her face red and swollen, and Weasley's eyes were the grimmest he'd ever seen them, even staring at him with open enmity across a Quidditch Pitch or the Great Hall.  Snape had no expression at all, strode forward with single-minded purpose.

"H-how are we getting out of here?" Draco said.  "No use, now, in pretending we haven't been, that opens up some avenues..."

"I'll kill them all if I have to," Snape said.

Draco blanched.  "It's more likely they'll kill us all, if you try."  He lowered his voice, jogging forward to walk side-by-side with the taller man, trying to keep his gaze off of Lupin's body.  "They're a wreck," he said, "they can't fight.  Look at them.  You need to get us _out_."

"I am _trying_!" Snape growled.  "I am not a bloody god!  I can't snap my fingers and make this right!  You can't Apparate out of Gringotts!"

"No," said Draco, and took a long, low, breath, because he was about to prove himself just as mad as the rest of them.  "But maybe you can fly."

Straddling a dragon, Draco thought.  He was straddling a _dragon._

'Straddling' was probably a poor word.  Granger had come out of her grief long enough to attach a sticking charm to all of them.

That meant Draco's arse was _glued_ to a dragon.  Not exactly the most dignified of positions, but he was far from caring.  Ron was closest to the dragon's head, sprawled out along its neck and attempting to coax it into the air, convince it that it _could_.  After what seemed an interminable moment, the gigantic dragon's wings unfurled, filling the entire cave with a faint luminescence.  Draco gazed at them dubiously.  They were weak and wobbling and full of slashes and holes…

…and they were moving, muscles pumping: up-down, up-down.  The draft was enormous.  And then they were lifting into the air, Potter's quiet sobs swallowed by the sound of the wind; and then they were moving forward, half in flaps, half in clawed climbing; and the huge double-doors that led into the bank-proper burst open; and then the cracks that Weasley must have placed around the stone gave way, creating more room; and then the dragon tore away the rest, with a ferocious sound…

…airborne.

Draco gulped in breaths, shaking in reaction.  Weasley was still crooning to the dragon, patting its huge, hoary head.  The dragon's breaths heaved; its sides heaved; Draco Malfoy heaved, side-to-side, feeling like a part of the living, breathing thing, himself.  Even Potter seemed to have ceased sobbing, and was clinging to Granger with wide, empty eyes.

Diagon Alley shrank below them, and then they were flying over London, Hermione casting a quick spell to obscure their passage.  The sun sat low in the sky.

But more quickly than Draco would have thought, the dragon wheeled and began to circle downward.  As they approached, two old houses seemed to shove out of the way to allow the dragon to land… on another house.  It lighted on the old, slate rooftop.  Hermione cast _Finite_ on her Sticking Charm, and then Snape disappeared with Lupin – presumably Apparated inside.  Granger grabbed his arm and did the same; he saw Potter reach for Weasley, just before the roof disappeared and he was in an old, cobwebby kitchen.  Lupin was laid out on the table.

"Wolfsbane," Snape said, and immediately lit a brazier, placing a cauldron over it.  "We're going to have to brew the fastest Wolfsbane in history," he said, flicking his wand to raise the flame higher.  "But ingredients.  I don't have enough.  I just brewed it."  He looked up, pinned Ron with his eyes.  "Your brother.  _Run!_ "

Weasley didn't ask, didn't pause, didn't question.  He ran as if the hounds of hell were on his heels.

"Wolfsbane.  I don't understand," Granger said, red-eyed.  "Can't we lock Professor Lupin here, just for tonight?"

"Werewolves can recover from terrible wounds," Snape said, "but if Lupin doesn't know enough to let me near him, let me help him, he will die from his injuries by morning."

"He's… n-not d-dead?" Potter stammered, rising.  "He's –"

"Shut your gaping mouth, Evans, and _help_ _!_ " Snape growled, and Potter's parted lips worked silently; unlike his best friend, he seemed frozen in place.

"We can do an assembly line," Granger said, nonsensically.  "We've done one before, for Polyjuice.  Draco, the bloodroot.  Harry.  _Harry_ ," she snapped.  "Remus _needs you_.  Can you do this?"

Potter nodded, and his eyes cleared.

"Good.  Begin to prepare the aconite.  You know how."

Draco figured this was one of the parts of the emergency where Granger took charge and he didn't care.  "Minced, right, sir?" he said.  " _Sir_?"

Ron stood in the doorway with one of the Weasley twins, holding an old carpetbag.

"Hullo _mygoodness_ ," said the redhead, catching sight of Lupin.  "Wolfsbane then?  Here, let me set this down _right by him_ , hello, everyone, get ingredients and may I suggest you run?"

They did, clambering down into the bag one at a time and not sparing a moment to stare at the lab space.  Draco had never seen or felt or been part of anything like it.  Granger found Essence of Dittany on one of the shelves and darted up the steps to sprinkle it all over Lupin's still form.  George – for George it was – set up the three cauldrons and Snape filled them with water.  Harry and Ron flew around the room getting ingredients.

" _Bloodroot!_ " Potter proclaimed, tossing it in the air, where it hovered.  Granger cast an unfamiliar spell and the ingredients shoved one another around in line until they were in the correct order.  Draco leapt into the air to yank the jar of bloodroot free and ran to find a chopping surface.  George, wordless, slid a wooden board in front of him before he could ask.  Potter nearly Apparated to stand beside him, chopping the aconite.

No one said a word beyond _HERE!_ or _like this!_ or _Boiling, now!_ until…

" _First part DONE!_ " Granger caroled, and slid to the second cauldron, where George was waiting.

"Dittany," he said.

"Yes," Hermione said, and tipped her cutting board to allow the blossoms to drift within.

"Aconite."

Potter tossed it in the waiting brew.

Granger looked up at the floating jars of ingredients.  "Moonstone, next."

Snape himself had crushed the moonstone.  Draco could remember its quality was the most important aspect of the potion as a whole, despite the plant for which the potion was named.  It spilled from his mortar in a shower of moonglow.

"Ten minutes," George announced, and began to stir.

"Twenty until sunset," Granger said.

"Third cauldron!" Snape snapped.

Ron was there, stirring.  "Two minutes until the next ingredient," he said.

There was an agony of waiting.  Then, "damiana paste!"

"I'm still _pasting_ it!" Harry shouted in return.  Draco scurried to help.

" _Now,_ gentlemen, or it will spoil," Snape said.

Draco chased a last chunk of the damiana until it was crushed flat and hurried forward –

And tripped.

Draco let himself thump forward, clinging to the mortar for dear life.  Despite the unholy jarring of both of his arms and the knock to his chin, he somehow managed to hold onto it.

Hermione plucked the mortar from his fingers and dashed to Ron's cauldron.

She tipped the damiana in.

"Colour?" Snape said.

There was a pause.

" _Colour_?"

"Pale, sky blue," Hermione said.  "Just like I've read about.  It's all right, Professor.  We weren't too late."

No one came to help Draco sit up; no one had a moment.  They leapt and danced around him until he pushed himself back against a shelving unit to be out of the way.  He thought he might have sprained his ankle.

"Add the first cauldron to the second," said Snape.

Harry and Hermione carefully took either side of the large cauldron and poured it into the smaller while George continued to stir.

"Good," said Snape.  "No, nor I," he added, shaking his head.

"Five minutes," Granger said, looking up at one of the many timers hovering in place around the room.  Draco didn't remember them appearing.  "Draco, are you all right?"

Draco pushed himself to his feet; for once, everyone was still.  There was only one more step to the potion, which was to pour the second cauldron into the last and stir for ten minutes.  The leg would sort itself out, he figured.  Complaining about it now seemed rather small.

"The sun is setting, I think," said Granger in a too-normal voice.

"You can't rush this," Snape said, but not to Granger.  "You can't rush it, it's got to be _right_."

"Right or not," said George.  "Last chance, isn't it?" and poured the contents of the second cauldron into the last.  He waited a moment before stirring them together.

"It's right," said Snape.  "How is it right?"

"I changed a few things at the last second," said George, "to make it faster..."

Snape blanched pure white.  "You _fool_!  If it doesn't work –"

"If it couldn't be finished in time, it wouldn't _matter_ if it were perfect," George snapped in return, snarl for snarl.  He snatched the potion off the flame and cradled it to himself, jogging up the steps.

"No – _George!_ " Snape shouted, and clambered up behind him.

There was an angry snarl from above the carpetbag: a scream.  Silence.

George's pale face shone from the top of the ladder.  "It's safe to come up.  Now," he said.

They climbed up out of the carpetbag cautiously, one at a time.  When Draco joined the others (favoring his left ankle), he saw a Werewolf, ill, scalded, panting in pain… a hint of Wolfsbane drooling from its maw, down to the table where it lay.  It watched him with sad, gold eyes full of intelligence.

Draco walked past, keeping the creature in his gaze, before turning to Snape.

The man was white-faced, cradling his arm to his chest.  A stream of scarlet dripped from his right hand, blossoming red down his sleeve.

"Well," Snape said, as they all stared aghast, "I suppose I'll have to make a double batch from now on."  Then, he went impossibly whiter and slumped sideways to the floor.

George moved Snape's hand from his other arm, peering at the puncture-marks there.  "It's not life-threatening or anything, which is pretty damned lucky considering he stuck his hand down a Werewolf's throat," he said, probably to reassure Potter, who looked as though he was about to follow Snape into unconsciousness.  "Look, we can't sit and feel sorry for ourselves, you know, not yet.  We've got brewing to do for Professor Lupin and Professor Snape.  If you get someone to a Potioneer fast enough, they might not even develop lycanthropy.  And Snape said that Lupin's injuries need potioning if he's to survive.  Let's see if we can work a little faster this time."

No one groaned or sighed in the wake of this pronouncement.  Instead, Ron squeezed Draco's shoulder as he limped by.  Hermione, frowning at the area just above Draco's line of sight, reached forward to sweep her fingers through Draco's hair.  Dragon's blood flaked away as she raked and tugged, fragments catching in his lashes until he blinked them away, swiped his cheeks with his fingers, shook out his hair.  She smiled, then (tiredly, triumphantly, ruefully).  A _let's work harder_ smile.

Draco looked into the determined faces of his allies and began cuffing up his sleeves.

* * *

A/N: End of arc.

Bill wasn't wrong about the Thief's Downfall; he just wasn't the _last_ wizard to work on it. The goblins didn't care about medicinal potions, so they asked the next Cursebreaker to incorporate something that unraveled all Transfigurative Potions.

REVIEW?

Please & thank you.

Keep reading, keep writing everyone!

-K


	24. Identity

When Draco woke, early morning light was spilling out onto his features from a long, low window.  He was sprawled on something soft that felt like neither his bed at home nor his bunk at Hogwarts.  He lay quietly, blinking his lashes against the sun and sorting yesterday's events in his mind.

The Gryffindors were in a heap atop the bed on the other side of the room, Granger's mane of curls covering most of Weasley's face, so that Draco wondered how the other boy hadn't asphyxiated in the night.  Granger still had some dragonsblood in her hair, and flakes of it painted on the cheek that Draco could see.  Weasley clutched her to him, freckles and redgold hair standing out against the muscles of his forearm at her waist.  Potter's back was pressed between the bed and the wall, and he lay curled away from the other two.

Draco had a faint memory of following the tug of the fealty oath up to this room, exhaustion numbing his head and dragging his steps; feeling the need to keep them in sight, but also to avoid encroaching on their space; dragging a blanket and casting a sleepy cushioning charm on the floor; his eyes pulling shut on the sight of Granger and Weasley and Potter across the room, tangling together and dropping into slumber.

He rolled to his feet and went downstairs.

A faint ghost of Grimmauld Place lived at the back of Draco's memory.  Back before old Granny Black had died, his parents had visited the Black home once or twice.  He remembered that his father had found the place distasteful; he remembered that Granny Black had swatted him until he cried, and his mother had gone white in the face.  That was the last time they'd seen Granny Black; not that Draco had minded.

Still, it allowed him to wander the halls with, while not confident assurance, at least the conviction he would not become hopelessly lost.  He remembered the location of the library, the drawing room, and the bathroom, as well as the location of the rooms he'd actually seen the night before.

He found Severus Snape in the kitchens, nursing what smelled like strong coffee.

"Draco," he said, straightening.

Draco examined him.  Clearly, he had been right about Snape, who was so gaunt and diminished that he wondered he hadn't called Snape a stranger when he first clapped eyes on him.  "Hello, sir," he said, carefully.

Alarm bled across Snape's features.  "Sir?" he quoted.

"Well," Draco said, still careful, still measured.  "No one's told me what I call you these days."

Snape set the coffee cup down, and placed a hand at his holster.

Draco slid a step back, and the small of his back hit the edge of a cabinet.  "…Professor?"

Snape stood, drawing.  "It's still _you_ ," he spat.  "No one thought to restore you?  No one – I made it easy, I made it _laughably_ easy, are you telling me that Evans didn't think to – that _Granger –_ "

"We didn't exactly have the time!" Draco gasped, palms up, the universal sign of _look: no wand!_   "We were rushing through the caves, and then we were helping Lupin, and then we were helping _you_!  I'm sure Evans – whoever that is – and Granger, too – thought they had more important things to deal with than me!"

"Than a fledgling Death Eater?" Snape challenged.

Draco felt his expression flatten into mulish lines.  "I did a good enough job getting us in, didn't I?  Played the perfect little pureblood, just as you wanted, _sir_.  And faced a _dragon_ and a _werewolf_ in one evening.  I'd say I made a decent accounting of myself, especially given I didn't know what I was in for."

Snape stared at him another, searching moment.  "You did what you had to do to survive," Snape said.  "Do not forget, I know who you are, Draco –"

"Who I _was_ , you mean," Draco returned.

"And you believe you have changed?"

Draco frowned.  "Believe?  I don't need to _believe_.  Not when everyone around me is so convinced.  Everyone but you, that is."

"Suppose that you have them all fooled?" Snape said.

Draco shook his head.  "I hardly think I'm a good enough actor to fool Potter or Weasley, much less Granger," Draco said, but doubt began to blossom in his mind.

"Granger would be fooled by you," Snape returned.  "She'd be pleased to, wouldn't she, bleeding heart that she is?  Or perhaps she is convinced because you have managed to fool yourself," he said, "imagining yourself good enough to stand in their company."

Draco felt as though he'd been struck, though he made no movement.  No one had ever spoken to him with such deliberate cruelty.  Even Potter's jibes were more offhand, careless, without this stiletto blade of scorn stripping his skin away at close range.

Snape's wand hand twitched as he snorted in derision at Draco's lack of response, and his sleeve slipped.

Draco could see the bite, could see the gauze Granger had taped there; could see lines of poison emanating from beneath it, down Snape's wrist and to his fingertips.  Suddenly, he remembered all of Snape's warnings about werewolves in third year, the way he'd gone on and on about them in Potions.  And he could see Snape's own spidery writing in his mind's eye: _the early symptoms of lycanthropy include fever, chills, and mood irregularities: depression, and aggressive paranoia._

Draco took an unconscious step forward, and Snape's wand hand jerked up.  Now that he was looking for it, he could see signs of the older man's discomfort in his face.  Sweat stood out on his brow, his skin was even more sallow than usual, and his hands shook with the finest of tremors.

"Sir," he said.  "The bite.  It looks as though it's gotten worse..."

"Worse?" Snape scoffed.  "I have fought my way through far worse.  You have no idea what I am capable of."

"No," Draco agreed.  "But even you aren't immune to a werewolf bite.  Sir."

Severus paused, wand hand dipping.

 _Think,_ Draco willed, silently.  _Think, and remember._

Snape shook his head, as though he could shake free of the madness lodged there.  He backed away to the kitchen table and seated himself, never lowering his wand, although now he wasn't even looking at Draco.  "Could it be?" Draco heard him mutter.  "Is that all it is, a little scratch and a life in shambles?  Well, after all, why not?  A moment of folly is all it takes Severus, and you should know…"

"Can I… get someone?"

Snape's head snapped up to pin him in place.  "Get someone?  You're just the same as you were in the woods where we first met, aren't you?  So _earnest._ Not fooling, not posturing.  Is the image you have created of yourself that strong, that I cannot move it, no matter what I do to you, no matter how I try?"

"Professor," Draco said.

"Very well," Snape replied.  "Lupin.  Lupin it must be.  Who else?" he said, and issued a horrible laugh.

Draco backed out of the kitchen under Snape's wand and only allowed himself to about-face once he reached the stairwell that led to Potter, Granger and Weasley.  He closed his eyes to center himself.  Even now, he could feel twin pulses from two very different sorts of connections: the thread of memory that would lead him to Potter, and the thread of fidelity that linked him to Weasley.  His first impulse was to consult them, because had no idea where Lupin was in the house, and he had the feeling that if he did not locate him quickly, Snape might do himself some terrible harm.

But in Snape's condition, additional people might add to his paranoia.  Besides that, there was only so much house to search.  Draco ran from room to room: the foyer; the dining room; the halls; Sirius Black's old room.  He was beginning to believe Lupin had gone elsewhere – back to Hogwarts, maybe? – when he found the older man curled up by the softly glowing fireplace in the Master Bedroom, shed fur lying around his sleeping form in a halo that marked where the shoulders and haunches of his wolf had lain.  Someone had covered the creature with a blanket, and it preserved the man's modesty, now.

Draco ran to Lupin and shook his shoulder.

Lupin's eyes flew open, and he looked around the room in shock.  "I'm… alive?" he rasped.  His bloodless face swung to examine Draco, gaze flicking up and down his form.  " _You're_ alive.  Are they all...?"  His voice was so hoarse that it took a moment for Draco to parse the words.

Draco nodded.  "Everyone's all right -"

A sob racked Lupin, and he clapped both hands to his mouth, fingers slender and scratched and bloody.  His golden eyes stayed trained to Draco's until Draco realized the other man needed more.  Some kind of confirmation?  So he nodded again, as earnestly as he knew how.

"The others are asleep," he added.

Lupin shook helplessly, rocking his head from side to side, as though he could not quite believe what Draco was telling him. 

Draco was at a loss.  Lupin kept trying to speak and getting choked on his own breath.  Draco thought about hyperventilation, and that if Lupin passed out, there would be no one who knew how to help Snape.

"Water," Draco decided.  "I'm going to get you some water."

He left the room, Lupin still gasping on the other side of the door.

Right.  Cups.  Cups?

There were cups in the bathroom, close by.  Draco _Aguamenti'_ d the cup and returned, helping Lupin hold it, making him sip it slowly until his breathing evened out against the will of the man's body, because he could only gasp when he was not swallowing.  "Professor Snape is in trouble," he said.  "I need you to stand up.  I don't think this can wait for clothes.  Wrap that around you, that's right.  Okay, we're going to walk, now.  Come along," Draco said, narrating everything because he wasn't sure what to say, and because Lupin gave a sharp nod whenever Draco confirmed something they were already doing, seeming to gather more strength with each predictable, carefully laid out, "stairs, now, watch the blanket" and "let's get the door" and "stairs again".

Then Lupin and Snape were face-to-face, and it was as though all the air had left the room.

"Severus," Lupin said.

Draco closed the kitchen door between them and locked it tight with every spell he knew.

Severus could feel the fever in his blood, in his brain.  Contagion swept through his heart and liver and lungs.  Every breath he took burned him.

"Severus," Lupin said again, and Snape shivered.

The sound of his name on Lupin's tongue vibrated the air between them, kicked off waves that sailed through the kitchen, bounced off of the cabinets and back again, and then in some places off the floor.

It was so _loud_.

And after the loudness were the syllables, which was his name – hated, feared, familiar, his own – and the tongue which shaped them.

Hated.  Feared.

Familiar.  _His own._

Lupin was the werewolf who had made him and, like many magical creatures, werewolves implanted the desire to obey within their prey, Severus recalled with the stillness of detachment.  So that they could eat them or turn them, one presumed.  He knew this and at the same time he hadn't been able to help asking for Lupin.

Lupin, whose eyes were wide and black and full of horror.  Lupin, who stumbled forward to fall at Severus's feet.  "Please," he said.

Juxtaposition.  The fire in Severus's blood demanded he prostrate himself, roll onto his back to show his white underbelly.  The human part of Severus, nominally still in control, thought it just that Lupin should beg him for forgiveness.

"Please _what_ ," Severus said.

"Why did you do this?" Remus cried.  "You were safe – you were all _safe_ from me.  Why did you open the door?"

Severus paused.  _Doordoordoor_ echoed around the kitchens, as though it were searching for just that, a way out.  Vibrations shivered in the air like candy floss.  Why _had_ he opened the door?

 _Evans was crying.  Granger was crying._ No, he'd stood at the vault door before that, banging against the barrier, even after he'd guessed what must be going on inside.

"Why didn't _you_ open the door?" Severus countered.  "We had the time, you fool, the time to help you.  If you hadn't dallied so long…"

"I could've died!" Remus pressed.

 _Dieddieddied_ , said the walls, and Severus realized that Remus wasn't acknowledging his brush with mortality; he was stating a preferred outcome.

"I could've died happy, knowing I'd saved my friends.  Knowing I'd died in the fight against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.  Instead, I'll live.  This is what I dream of at night, Severus, this is what I've done in my sleep when I wake up screaming.  Why couldn't you have just _let me go_?" he growled, and took Severus by the shoulders, and shook him.  "Why do you have to save everyone?  Why couldn't you let me _be_?"

Severus let himself be shaken for a moment; but then, without warning, his horror turned to fury.  He slammed Lupin to the floor beneath him.  "Why do you keep _giving up_?" he growled, pressing Lupin to the floor with all his weight.  "Why do you keep playing the _martyr_?"  Snape picked up Lupin's shoulders and slammed them against the floor with a satisfying smack, and didn't care that the other man's head jounced off the floor a beat behind.  "I need you _alive_!"

Lupin's eyes narrowed, flashed gold.  "Why," he said, flat.  "Why do you need _that_?"

Severus stared as the kitchen swooped and whirled around him.

"Go on," Lupin said.  "Why do you need me?  Why does Severus Snape need anyone?"

"Because you are guarding my sanity," Severus said.

Lupin laughed bitterly, and a tear spilled down his cheek; Severus wasn't sure if the other man was weeping again, or if the movement had dislodged the liquid.  He had the oddest, animal urge to _taste_ it.  "We've been asleep at our posts.  You and I are mad, Severus, and only growing madder."

"Then let us be mad," Snape said, "as we have no choice in the matter.  Let this war destroy us, leave nothing behind of who we once were.  You'll see plots everywhere, and I'll see Lily, and we'll be our own worst fears together.  Let the flames lick at our feet.  But do not let us walk willingly into the conflagration and allow ourselves to be burned to cinder.  Do not let us leave our work here unfinished."

" _Factum est illud, fieri infectum non potest_ ," Remus whispered, and it sounded like a mantra, or a prayer.

"What's done is done, and cannot be undone," Severus replied.  "Has it stood you in good stead, then?"

"Often it is the only thing that has," Remus said, voice full of some passion Severus struggled to name.  Lupin squinted up at him for a long, silent moment, then lifted a hand to Severus's face.  Severus flinched, then held, as Remus pressed his palm to Severus's cheek; they sighed together.  "Why do you have to choose me to look after?"

"Shut it," said Severus, but his eyes were closed against the touch and the room seemed to be settling around him, vibrations down to a bone-deep hum.

"You stuck your hand into a _werewolf's mouth_ , Severus," Remus pressed, pulling Severus down beside him.  "I'm not the only one with a death wish."

 _George was about to do it instead, the heroic fool._ He was tired, tired, _tired_.  And when he closed his eyes everything stopped spinning, spinning, _spinning_.

Remus pulled him close, so that Severus's head was pressed to his shoulder, and the universe steadied further, yet.  Severus sighed.  Remus smelled familiar.  The sweat of fear and the herbal scent of Wolfsbane, tea leaf and Order meeting, Potter and Evans and Black and Pettigrew.  Remus smelled like his life.

"It's _Lily_ that you see," Remus said.

Severus startled.  "You knew."

"I postulated.  Once you said it wasn't Albus."

There was a silence.  Severus breathed in the scent of his life.  Remus trembled under him.

"You sure you wouldn't like to have a go at killing me, yourself?" Remus offered.

"No," Severus said.

"It might make you feel better."

"No."

"It might make _me_ feel better," Remus admitted.  "If you were to shout, and throw things, and cast hexes.  I'd understand."

"Shut up," Severus said again.  He sighed against the cloth of the sheet wrapped around the other man and collapsed into slumber.

Draco was clutching at a mug of tea.

He was clutching at a mug of tea because he'd made a kettleful of hot water and Summoned a cup, and he'd done that because he wasn't sure what else to do.  He hadn't woken any of the others because his first instinct had been to wake Potter, and then that instinct seemed to grow duller when he focussed on it, and then grow stronger again when he let it be.  That was so puzzling that he ignored the idea of waking anyone entirely.

Soon enough, though, the decision was taken out of his hands.  Granger descended the hall stairs, all barefoot and sleep-mussed, and he smiled at her before he could think better of it.

"Oh.  Hullo," she said, looking surprised.  "Tea?"

"Tea," said Draco, because she still looked mostly asleep, and words of one syllable might be all she could gather at this hour of the morning.  Even Muggleborn geniuses might need a few minutes.

He didn't say anything else as she fixed herself a cuppa and settled into the stuffed chair across from his.

"How long have you been awake, then?" she inquired, blowing across the surface of her china cup and slurping a thin sip.

"Half hour," he said.  Then, "Snape and Lupin are… uh, talking.  In the kitchen."

She eyed him.  "And no one's fixed you, yet?"

"I'm not _broken_ ," he snapped.  A bit of hot tea sloshed on his fingers, and he cursed.

"Sorry, no, of _course_ you're not," Granger stammered.  "I didn't mean to… Draco, it's early.  I don't know what I mean."

"Do I seem broken to you?" Draco snapped.  Or at least, he'd meant to snap.  Instead, the words emerged humiliatingly plaintive.

She must have heard the real question.  No one had ever accused Granger of being short of brains.  "No, you seem quite yourself.  Albeit a little shorter-tempered.  As brave and brilliant as usual."

Draco hid his confused flush in a hasty sip of tea, but when he looked up, Granger was dashing tears from her cheeks.

"Oh!  Don't worry, it's nothing," she said.  "I, erm, tend to cry once horrible circumstances have past.  It saves t-t-time during the c-crisis…" she added, then buried her head in her hands and sobbed.

Draco took her teacup from her and set it aside, and stood awkwardly until her tears began to dry.

"Oh, Merlin.  I'm so sorry to weep all over you…"  Granger looked up through lashes spiky with tears.  Then, she frowned.  "You came over here.  You… took my tea."  She wiped at her cheeks, looking businesslike so rapidly that he was a bit taken aback.

"You'd have spilled it," he said, quiet.  He swallowed and drew back, settling in his own chair again.  "I don't understand," he said, not meeting her eyes.  "I don't – the last thing I remember saying to you was an insult," he added, and he could _feel_ his cheeks heating again – could _feel_ the shame the thought brought him, that he should have insulted Hermione Granger, who was so brilliant and brave and _good_ , and who'd always thought he was… the thought stopped before it could take form, but he somehow felt the shape of it.

The way she always saw the best possible him.  The best possible _everyone_.

"Do you know," she said, leaning forward, hands pressed to her knees.  "Ron and I laughed at it, back at the beginning, how we both felt we'd known you forever.  It was because you treated us as though you had."

But Draco knew his behavior towards Granger wasn't about the way she treated him, but based off of how he _felt about her_ , which – he wasn't even sure he could explain it.

"That's not it?" she said, reclaiming her teacup.  They sipped in silence, and it would have been surprisingly companionable but for the way Draco kept expecting the other shoe to drop.  Hermione Granger had been adventuring with him last night.  There had been some of what Draco could only call 'derring-do', and a near-tragedy averted by the heady combination of bravery, intellect and sheer luck.  And now she was seated across from him, cheeks drying with little crusts of salt he was close enough to see, sipping tea.

"You know, I had this brilliant idea that I'd Memory Charm my parents, send them off on some long vacation once Harry and Ron and I went adventuring.  They're Muggles – of course, you'd know that," she added, warm brown eyes unusually sardonic.  "But no matter how I tried, I could never seem to convince them of the danger.  I tried using Muggle words: _terrorist.  Serial killer._   But somehow, they couldn't see their little girl being famous enough or important enough to be anybody's target.

"Once I finally showed them some Prophets about him, it was all, _Hermione, we can't allow this man to ruin our lives; no matter what, we must keep on living._   My mother has a saying about life needing to be lived in between disasters."

Draco thought of all the stories he'd heard about Memory Charms going terribly wrong.  About Lockhart, stuck in Saint Mungo's to the end of his days.  "What happened?" he said.

"Well, I tried one out, just to see how it would go," she said, swallowing, eyes scrunching up against a sight Draco felt she'd rather not see.  "At least, that's what I told myself.  It was awful, the way they started treating me like a guest.  But then… when I left to go to the library later that day…"

"Muggles have libraries?"

Hermione's nose scrunched up.  "Malfoy, don't be provincial, of _course_ Muggles have got libraries.  Anyroad, when I returned, my mother was ever so pleased to see me.  She s-said…"  Granger had to pause a moment to gather herself before she could continue.  "She said she wished I could stay forever, and if my own parents were foolish enough not to miss me, then perhaps I could live with she and her h-husband until term started up again…"

"A failed charm," Draco said.  "And it's no wonder you couldn't cast it properly –"

Granger glared.

"…because you'd never done it before!  Merlin.  _Touchy_ ," he said.

"I cast it just fine, thank you," Granger retorted.  "But it wouldn't _work_.  Because they love me."

Draco sighed.  "Don't tell me you have some romantic notions about love conquering all."

"I do," Granger said, as though it weren't something to be ashamed of in the slightest.  "Dumbledore thought so, too.  He thought that the greatest power Harry has is love."

"Well, the old man had a lot of crackpot ideas," Draco said, then suddenly recalled that Albus Dumbledore was dead.  "Er… sorry.  I mean…"

"It's fine," Granger said, waving away the objection with a swat of her hand.  "He wanted Professor Snape to kill him in public, ending his career, any hope of human understanding and probably destroying him forever if not for – well.  If not for us.  I'd slap him 'round the ears if I saw him just now."

Draco was blindsided by a sweep of affection.  "I remember your hitting arm," he said dryly.

It was his turn to watch _her_ flush.  "Ha bloody ha, as Ron would say," she replied.  "Anyway, Harry's mum's love saved him.  And," she said, blushing even darker scarlet, "I think my mum's saved me.  Because if I'd kept on messing with other people's thoughts like that, I don't know where it might've stopped.  So much faster just to try to control others than convince them of my – clearly correct – point of view.  When it comes down to it, I'm awfully glad my experiment failed."

Draco envisioned Hermione Granger as the next Dark Lady and shivered.  He was awfully glad, too, really.  Then, sipping his tea, he caught Granger's eye and paused as he realized the implication.  "You mean –"

She didn't soften her words with a shrug or by politely gazing away.  "I think that Professor Snape knows what he's about, which means his tweaked Memory Charm was probably effective.  And I know you're still on our side.  And I know why my own Memory Charm didn't work on my mum and dad."

Then, she finally broke her hold on him by setting her teacup on the saucer.

Draco's mind reeled away from the idea.  He watched his hands as they shook, as the cup began to teeter in its saucer.  As Granger grasped the cup, set it aside.

Clasped his hands in hers.

"You're just too clever for your own good," Draco said, not looking up at her – still staring down at their hands, hers squeezing his, grounding him.  "But you've got it wrong.  I've never l-loved anyone but my mother and father, I can't – I can't _love_ any of you."

"Maybe you're right, and that's not it at all," she said, and there was something in her voice that called him to attention, that made his eyes seek hers again.  "Maybe it's that, no matter what Professor Snape tried to take from you, you're the same person.  A _good_ person, who will do what's good because, in the absence of other influences, it's just what comes naturally."

It was so the exact opposite of what Professor Snape had assured him a mere hour before, that he pressed his lips to hers.

The kiss was desperate, and off-centre, and Hermione pushed at him, insistent, so that he slammed against the cushions behind him, lips detaching from hers with an unpleasant sound; so that for one, horror-struck moment, he thought he'd made a terrible mistake.  But then she followed him, draping herself across his legs, and pressed her lips to his: gentling the touch, quiet, warm, _her_ , and Draco's heart twisted with –

\- was it?

And then she drew back, and pressed those lips to his forehead, cheek, and lips for an instant each, and each kiss was like a spell that left him calmer and more himself in its wake.

And he didn't like touching.  Didn't _like_ to be touched.  But now he had Hermione Granger sprawled on him, her legs and his a perpendicular pair, and he thought back to Potter and Weasley, their hands on him, how he hadn't flinched or shrunk away.  How he'd leaned _into_ them, his body betraying the trust he felt.

Hermione tucked her head under his chin and pulled her legs close, so that they were a tangle of warm limbs.

"Have we ever –" he said.

"Not that I'm aware of," she replied.

"Not that you're _aware of_ ," he repeated.

"It's complicated."

"I see that."

Then, nothing else for a bit.  Hermione's hands came up to the back of Draco's head and scratched his scalp there.

Merlin, she was going to be amazing for some bloke.

For some bloke – not for _him_.  And suddenly, he understood what he felt towards Hermione Granger: _courtly love_ , of all the mad, nonsensical things.  Something in him felt she belonged to Potter and Weasley, and they to her; and that he stood at the bottom of her tower, forever gazing aloft.  _Courtly love_ towards a girl with wild, frizzy hair, more brains than sense, and a background he'd been raised to disdain.

"…no?" she said, after a moment.

"Yes!" he exclaimed, squeezing at the back of her neck.  "And, uh… no."

She blinked up at him doubtfully.

"Not… like that," he qualified.  "I mean, like that, but…"  He had the urge to throw his arms up into the air at the way that words seemed to have deserted him, but his arms were otherwise occupied.

She laughed a bit, under her breath.  "I think I see."

"You must be good at Divination, then," he muttered.  He was pretty sure he hadn't communicated anything to her that made a speck of sense.

Draco noticed she didn't seem to be in a hurry to leave, though, and he was enjoying the novel experience of warm, friendly human crowded up against him.  "I thought… you and, uh, Weasley?"

Hermione smiled; he could tell because of the way her cheek shifted against his chest.  "Maybe someday," she said.

"…And Potter?"

She drew back to look him in the face.  "Well, all right," she admitted.  "I suppose him as well."

"What, were you taking turns?  Is Weasley next?"

She swatted him.  "What?  No!  You were the one who just kissed me, so don't behave as though I planned it all out.  I wouldn't've, and if I had done, I certainly wouldn't have waited until just _now_."

When he was vulnerable.

It was the combination of that feeling of vulnerability and exasperation and a sweeping tide of trust in Hermione Granger's brilliance and kindness that he said, "fix me up, then, will you?"

* * *

A/N:

* * *

All right, now I know that many of you may be tempted to comment solely on one part or another, so, if you are moved to leave a comment, I'd love to hear:

1) How Severus's bit went. Initially I had them hexing each other to bits before settling down, but more than any two characters, these two thwart me whenever they interact.  I don't see them as romantic here, more along the lines of the power struggle this version of the pair seems constantly engaged in, but YMMV.

2) How Draco's bit went. (Oh my gosh, overt romance! Which I haven't really written since HM. I am making a very anxious face as I type this. Which you can't see, so I'm narrating it for you.)  Courtly love is loving in a romantic way, but from afar.  The traditional courtly love is, of course, between a Lady and a knight of her court.  The Lady is married, and never does anything improper with the knight.  The knight knows she is loyal to her husband.  A typical courtly compliment would be about how lucky he'd be to have the Lady as his One True Love, but that the very loyal nature that makes her so attractive is what would prevent her from agreeing to such a thing.  <3  A more modern courtly love is Ten for Rose, or Neal for Elizabeth.

(Huh - courtly love, gender roles reversed?  That would be very, very interesting.)

Hermione has a very unconventional approach to romance in my headcanon.  I'm not sure you'll ever really 'see' it, because this is not a romantic story overall, but in my head she, like a lot of very bright people, doesn't see the point in conventionality unless it happens to suit her.

3) I know this is a short chapter. Initially, I had the beginning of Narcissa's bit, but it didn't feel quite like it went ALONG with the rest. So here it is: short.

It really helps me to hear what you think, so if you read it, please review it! :D

* * *

Rec for this Chapter:

* * *

Well, it's time to rec a show again!  This time it's _Pushing Daisies_.

The premise of the show is that the main character has a very unusual superpower: he can bring deceased creatures back to life by touching them.  However, unless he reverses the act by touching them again, another creature will die in their place, usually something or someone quite close by.

The main character is almost comically unassuming to have such an immense power over life and death.  His name is Ned, and he is The Piemaker, because that - apart from bringing things back to life, that is - is what he does best.

Are you already getting how quirky and charming this story is?

Things are complicated by the fact that the love of Ned's life has just passed away.  He can't resist waking her, of course.  He loves her so desperately.  She loves him!  So it should be a happy ending.  Except, of course, that now they can never _touch_ , or Ned's spell will be reversed.  And, of course, the lady in question can never be seen again by anyone she knows.

For such a little-known show, _Pushing Daisies_ has some very well-known faces, and everyone plays their roles to perfection.  The cinematography is unusually gorgeous for a television show: the colours are played up to eleven, everything in green and gold hues.  (In a lovely piece of fanfiction, Dean Winchester visits the Piemaker - not for pie - and wonders why 'everything is so yellow'.)  The entire show is narrated by a sympathetic-sounding grandfatherly voice, who has the tendency to refer to the characters by their titles: "The Piemaker began to wonder..."  It's refreshing, charming, and truly unique.

By total coincidence (seriously, guys, I was planning on reccing _Pushing Daisies_ from the get-go) [Esquire is doing a poll](http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a33794/tv-reboot-tournament-final/) to see which prematurely-cancelled show most deserves to be continued, and _PD_ is one of the _final two_.  I'm pretty sure you can all guess what the other one is, but if you can't, I'll rec it next week.  Not that any of you haven't seen it... right?  Right.

Happy reading, happy writing, everyone!

-K


	25. Headmistress

Narcissa Malfoy stood at the top of the Astronomy Tower and peered down.

Wisps of cloud and fog carpeted the ground below, but it was still easy to feel just how high up she was from the way that the wind blew, and the way the fog swirled just enough to occasionally reveal a patch of earth.  The view was a bit dizzying, but Narcissa liked it very well, otherwise.  Even at this time of the year, it was too cold and remote for anyone else to find very interesting, and too macabre for any of the faculty to attempt to find her there.

Or so she'd thought.  Hurrying steps now sounded on the stair several meters behind her, echoing up through the stone stairwell and carrying easily to her ear.  She turned to face the approaching figure, setting her features in stern lines, relaxing only slightly when she saw it was Charity.

Charity paused at the mouth of the stairs, brought up short as though she were surprised to have found Narcissa there.  But, unless Narcissa was mistaken – and she did not believe she was – Charity's haste meant she'd been looking for Narcissa.  How surprising could it be to have found her?

"Well, Charity?" Narcissa inquired, folding her hands patiently.  "What has you seeking out my company at this unseemly hour of the morning?"

Charity blinked, her redgold, wild hair tangling in the wind.  "Death Eaters!" she blurted.  "Headmistress," she tacked on, with ducked head and a bit of a bend at the knee, and if that wasn't progress, Narcissa didn't know what was.

"Death Eaters," Narcissa echoed.  "Have there been hexes fired?"

Charity lowered her eyes.  "No, ma'am."

"No?  No one – no one _else_ – is dead, I presume?"

Charity's gaze flickered over helplessly to the edge of the Tower and out into the mist.  "No, ma'am."

"Then let us comport ourselves with dignity," Narcissa replied.  "Do you know whether our guests have introduced themselves?"

Charity shook her head, breathless.  "They haven't announced themselves at all, Headmistress.  They waltzed in through the front doors, and no one knows they're here, yet.  No one but us."

"Us," Narcissa said.  That, too, was progress, though of a different sort.

Charity seemed to believe she'd made some sort of error.  "You, I mean, Headmistress.  My opinion doesn't matter."

"I've told you that it does," Narcissa corrected sharply.  "In private, at least."

"Only, I can't behave one way in private and another way in public, Headmistress," Charity said, eyes still lowered.  "I'm not so clever as you are."

Narcissa held back a snort.  Charity was playing some kind of long game, and while Narcissa respected the attempt, she had little time for it.  "Well, then, do go on.  Did you recognize any of them?"  _And did any of them recognize you?_

"Yes, Headmistress.  The Carrow brother and sister.  Alecto and Amycus.  And there was another with them, but I didn't see his face."

"Very good that you found me so quickly," Narcissa replied.  She looked down at her clothing: robes her own royal blue-purple, with a matching diaphanous cloak draped over her shoulders, stitched with a pattern in narrow, meandering velvet ribbon.  She stepped into the alcove of the stairwell; and perhaps Narcissa had paid rather too much attention to her couture because Charity anticipated her, tucking strands of blonde curls back into place and charming them to stick.  "How _did_ you find me so quickly?"

"I asked Selyas, and she told me you'd gone here," Charity said.  "That you always did around this hour of the morning."

Narcissa tsked.  "Selyas should guard her tongue."

"Selyas knows who's on the Headmistress's side," Charity replied, and the hint of a rebuke in the words rather pleased Narcissa.

Still, "hrm," was all she said before beginning to descend the winding stair that led from the Tower.

Selyas was crouched by the riverbank within one of the older portraits, painted blonde plaits swaying in an artistic wind.

"What a darling you are, helping locate me for Charity," Narcissa said.  She could practically _feel_ Charity twitching at her side, vibrating with impatience; but if the past few weeks had taught Narcissa anything, it was that her allies needed as much careful cultivation as one of her prize roses, or each would wither on the vine in its turn.  "Would you mind calling on Dobby the House Elf as well?  There's that lovely picture of fruit, right by the kitchen door for you to call from; tell him he is to bring our guests whatever they desire.  At Dobby's discretion, of course," she added, causing Charity to shoot her a startled glance.

Dobby was possessed of a modicum of better judgement, which was more than she could say for most of the staff.  She trusted him to appease the Death Eaters without acceding to any desire that went beyond good sense.  After all, he'd been perfectly capable of such when he'd served Death Eaters at the Manor.

"Come, Charity," Narcissa ordered, and swept down stairwell after stairwell until she arrived at the stair that rose directly above the Entrance Hall.  Then she paused, and observed.

Alecto and Amycus Carrow were easy to spot.  Narcissa had always been good at aura-reading, and theirs was so foul it identified them immediately as Death Eaters in general, and as themselves in particular.  The third –

Oh, sweet Merlin above.

It was the Dark Lord, himself.

Narcissa darted a glance to Charity.  Dared she hide her?  No, no – the Dark Lord surely knew of Charity's existence, surely knew that Narcissa had taken her in, perhaps even knew her to be fond of the girl.  Her absence would be conspicuous and therefore suspicious.

Oh, no.  Oh, _no._

How could she have thought herself his equal?  How could she have dared be so audacious?

"My Lord," she said.

Voldemort's snakelike gaze lifted to hers. Narcissa hoped against hope that Charity would follow her gracefully, read her body language correctly. Did they yet know one another so well?

Narcissa schooled her features into pleased lines and strode elegantly down the stair, her long, diaphanous cloak dragging the steps behind her.  That was, until Charity scooped up both robe and cloak, eyes lowered, allowing them to pool slightly in the middle, but not permitting them to sweep the floor.  When Narcissa stopped several feet away from their guests, she could feel a few light tugs on her robes, then nothing more, as Charity lay them artistically behind her.

"My Lord," she said again, once she had his undivided attention.  "What a pleasant surprise."  Narcissa was surprised when her words emerged _sounding_ pleased.

"As lovely as always," Voldemort replied in a voice that prickled down her spine and out her toes.  "I thought I might come with Alecto and Amycus to inspect my holdings.  As any Lord worth his salt ought to do."

Narcissa smiled, charmed.  She _had_ to be charmed; she had to _feel_ charmed, so she thought of the statement as charming.  Loudly.

She did not allow herself to consider that a Lord such as Voldemort had the lowliest of upbringings, and probably knew what little he did about lordship from books and fairy stories; at least, not for more than a fraction of an instant.

"Alecto.  Amycus," Narcissa said, allowing a small measure of the distaste she felt to enter her tone.  As well it should; no matter their status as Death Eaters, Alecto and Amycus were ill-favoured, evil creatures, and they were _rank_.  She could smell them from where she stood.  "My Lord, I cannot help but wonder why you have brought servants with you.  Surely you knew I would be pleased to provide for you, with my own hands, if necessary?"

"I notice you've got a pretty little handmaiden yourself, Malfoy," Alecto said, one side of her mouth pulling back into a sneer.  "A little meat on the bone, though; is that to your taste, then?  Gives you something to hold onto, I expect…" she added as her brother hissed a horrible, wheezing laugh at her side.  "The only good Mudblood is a dead one, I say, but if you make other use of them, each to her own…"

Narcissa's lips thinned, but Voldemort held his own hand up in the air and Alecto shrunk back as though he'd drawn his wand.

"Some women carry their pets wherever they go," he said.  "A harmless affectation, if it pleases her.  So long as she is house-trained.  Is she, Narcissa?"

Narcissa bowed her head and bent her knee.  "My Lord.  I should never dare to bring anything but a… _well-behaved_ creature into your presence.  I was hoping…"  Narcissa bit her lower lip.  "I was hoping I might have more such girls.  For training.  Shouldn't every pureblooded girl have a Mudblood to see to her needs?  So much more useful than a House Elf, they can even provide conversation so long as they remember their place."  She raised her eyes hopefully, but did not rise from her crouch.

The Dark Lord laughed, chucking a finger beneath her chin.  "You are a clever, handy little thing, aren't you?  Well, there are millions of Muggles and Mudbloods, and even if we should set every witch and wizard in the world to casting _Incendio_ after _Incendio_ , it should take us decades to be rid of them all.  I will give your idea due consideration."

"Yes, my Lord.  Thank you, my Lord," Narcissa said, and rose.

"As a matter of fact, I brought Alecto and Amycus to serve you in their own way," the Dark Lord said.

Narcissa hoped her whole body didn't freeze in place the way her thoughts just had.  "Serve me, my Lord?"

"Serve the school, I suppose," Voldemort said, with an expansive gesture towards the Great Hall, the stairwells in the distance.  "Of course, a Mudblood such as your new pet can no longer teach Muggle Studies.  And whomever did you _have_ for Defense last year?"  He shook his head.  "No matter; you're short a Dark Arts professor as well."

Narcissa eyed the Carrows.  "And you thought… of Alecto and Amycus, my Lord?"

"Well, not immediately," he allowed, eyeing them in his turn.  "But eventually.  Once I realized that you might need… a little bit of _help_."

"Help, my Lord," Narcissa repeated.

"Ah, Narcissa," Voldemort said, hissing the sibilants in her name.  "Let neither of us put forth the pretense that you are anything but soft-hearted."

"I may be soft-hearted, but I am not soft-headed, my Lord," Narcissa replied firmly.  "I know my duty.  I shall punish those who deserve punishment."

"Punishment," Voldemort scoffed, and Alecto and Amycus joined him in hideous parodies of laughter.  "I know what passes for punishment at this school, Narcissa.  _Lines_.  Scrubbing _floors_.  Nothing that will break a child of deleterious habits.  And I should know, shouldn't I?"

Narcissa racked her mind for how to answer such a leading question.  She knew if she did not continue the conversation, Alecto would do it for her, and she wasn't certain where the odious woman's leadership would take them.

At that moment, Dobby appeared with a full tea service.  Narcissa had never been happier to see the small Elf in her life.  She almost thanked him before recalling her company.

"Would you care for tea, my Lord, as we discuss the matter?" Narcissa pointedly did not offer Amycus or Alecto any.

"Yes, thank you, Narcissa," he replied.

Narcissa had long since learned how he took it.  She poured the tea and led him to the dais in the Great Hall, seated him at her own place.  Alecto huffed, sitting at another one of the professorial chairs – Flitwick's, unless Narcissa was mistaken – and propping her filthy, muddy boots up onto the dining table.  Amycus left the Great Hall.  Narcissa darted a panicky glance at Dobby, who popped out of existence – hopefully to follow the unsavoury man.

Charity stood behind Narcissa, silent and motionless.

"If my Lord did not suppose me strong enough for the role, then I find myself surprised that he should honor me with the position of Headmistress," Narcissa said.

Voldemort lifted the tea in one hand, gently resting the bottom in his cupped palm, and blowing across the surface before sipping.  Narcissa stared, because the mannerism was borrowed, and she knew precisely from whom.

Voldemort was playing at being a Lord, and Lucius was his model.

Suddenly a great number of things came together to form a horrifying whole.

"Settle those ruffled feathers, my dear," Voldemort said, lowering his tea to pat her hand – another habit of her husband's.  "I am not implying that you haven't the makings of a brilliant Headmistress.  Perhaps, however, you need a little help with discipline."

"I am perfectly capable," Narcissa argued.

 _Argued_.  She was arguing with the Dark Lord.  She could scarcely believe her own temerity.

But letting Alecto and Amycus Carrow have access to a group of schoolchildren and telling them that they were responsible for their _discipline_?  She supposed she could arrange for some accident later, but for both of them?  It should look suspicious, no matter how she managed.

"I should rather have Professor Snape for Defense Against the Dark Arts," she said.  "We cannot…"  She lowered her gaze.  "Forgive me my Lord.  I never ought to argue with you, or even desire to contradict you.  But there is a contrariness in my heart.  Help me to understand."

"No, no, my dear," said Voldemort; and now that he'd called her by that appellation once, terrible emerging from his thin lips, he seemed stuck on it.  "I like your fire, so long as it is banked.  Convince me."

"Well, my Lord," Narcissa said, trying hard to seem tentative, now.  "It is only that Severus is ever so much more experienced as a professor.  I was counting on his support.  On top of that, he knows and understands the students.  If we wish to teach them the right way of thinking, we will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."  Calling the Cruciatus Curse 'vinegar' burned on her tongue.  "Do you want broken drones stumbling out of Hogwarts in seven years, so fearful that they cannot think?  Or do you want bright young minds and passionate hearts, consumed with the love of you, longing to fulfill your every wish because to do otherwise would be anathema?"

Voldemort stared into her eyes, and Narcissa thought of her certainty: filled her mind with happy children praising the name of Lord Voldemort; of little ones in neat little rows, chanting, _we love our Lord!_ Cheerful boys and girls happy to follow their Lord's ideals.  And then of Alecto and Amycus's Hogwarts: whips, chains, frightened children, emerging from Hogwarts dull and useless for anything but sullen obedience.  Innovation and commerce dying.  An obedient, helpless, and lifeless populace.

"Very well, I can certainly be brought to see your point of view," Voldemort said, stroking his chin.  "But I shall still need to see evidence you can punish those who need punishment."

"I won't disappoint you, my Lord," Narcissa said.

"No," he said.  "I believe you shall not."  And he nodded towards the door.

Amycus Carrow entered the Great Hall, dragging Minerva McGonagall behind him in a full Body Bind.

Narcissa cast her mind back.  When had he left the hall?  _The moment you started discussing punishment_ , her merciless memory pointed out.  Carrow drew his foot back to kick McGonagall in the shin.

"Well, Narcissa?" the Dark Lord said, offering Narcissa his hand to stand.

When the Dark Lord had first gained young Lucius Malfoy's confidence, lying every other word and spending the entire Black family inheritance on well-placed bribes, she thought she had despised him, but that was nothing to the fire that burned in her, now.  He'd backed Narcissa into a corner no matter how she'd danced to escape it; and the idea occurred to her, too late, that he had enjoyed watching her maneuver, knowing that his hounds would tree her in the end.

The fact that he still found her clever and useful and entertaining should have bolstered her, but instead it gave Narcissa a ruinous shiver of shame and self-disgust.  She had molded and stretched herself into a new creature for Lord Voldemort, one capable of dancing after him.  She feared that, after this was over, she would no longer recognize herself.

Narcissa folded these thoughts away in the time it took for Alecto's smile to grow to a black-toothed grin; then, she took the Dark Lord's hand and allowed him to escort her from the dais to stand before the felled woman.

If she dared sidle away now, Alecto and Amycus would know her for a weakling.  They would come back during the schoolyear if they did not simply make camp immediately, and they would terrorize the students and staff, destroying if not murdering the children.  She expected that what they lacked in creativity, they would make up for in ruthlessness and in sheer, brute force.

Or she could torture Minerva McGonagall, sacrificing her own honor and McGonagall's health as well as any chance of allying with her.  Narcissa was well aware of the chance that the elderly witch's heart might give out under the strain: this morning, she might become a murderess.

Narcissa took a breath.  It was a choice that was not any choice at all.  Still, she gave one last, desperate wriggle away from the necessity of it.  "My lord," she said, lowly, in a voice she hoped only Voldemort could hear, "Minerva McGonagall has done me no harm.  Ought I to punish a woman who has given no offense?  Will that not turn my staff against me, undo all of the hard work I have accomplished to earn their trust, in Your name?"

Amycus threw a bundle of something at Narcissa's feet.  Charity stooped to it, raising it to Narcissa's hand.

The bundle was, in fact, a stack of unopened envelopes in handwriting Narcissa still recognized from her Transfiguration lessons, opened missives scrawled with other hands below.  Dozens of letters, all bound together in waxed string.  The tingle against her hands bespoke a shattered Notice-Me-Not on the lot.

"Your Deputy Headmistress plots against you," Voldemort said in her ear, sidling past her and running his bare wand across the bound witch's forehead.  "While she bows to you in public, she perches quiet as a spider above you, spreading her lies.  Some of these," he added, "speak of being rid of you more permanently.  Of murder," he said quietly, as though Narcissa needed the elaboration to grasp the full picture.  "She even attempts to sway your girl to her side."

Narcissa had no idea the expression that could be decorating her face, now.

"Did you suppose you'd charmed them all?" Voldemort added, voice brimful with poisonous sympathy.  "This is why charm does not do, Narcissa.  This is why _only one thing will do._ "

"Very well," Narcissa said, drawing her wand: birch, unicorn hair, ten inches.  "End the Body-Bind."

At Voldemort's nod, Amycus cancelled the spell with a slashed _Finite_ unlike anything Narcissa had seen before.  Unconventional spellcasting and the element of surprise explained how a seasoned hand such as McGonagall had been taken out by a thug like Carrow.

"You thought to betray us," Narcissa said, chin tilted up, eyes narrowed, wand brought to bear.

 _Show remorse_ , she thought, projecting the idea with all her strength.  _Beg for forgiveness._

But McGonagall rose instead, line of her jaw ticking as she pushed herself to her feet.  "I would die to ensure the safety of the children at this school," she said.

"I am uncertain what about dying ensures any such thing," Narcissa said from between clenched teeth.  " _Diffindo!_ "

The severing spell sliced the Deputy Headmistress's cloak and gown in two so that it dropped at her feet, leaving only a starched, prim-looking collar and shoulders behind.  A shallow slash bloomed across McGonagall's collarbone, blood just beading at the apex and dripping down as she swallowed.

Alecto guffawed into her hand.  "You missed, _Headmistress!_ "

"No, I did not," she said.  Without turning from McGonagall, she added, "this is a matter between myself and the woman before me… and yourself, of course, my Lord.  It is not for the prurient interest of such rabble."

"To the contrary," Voldemort said, eyeing McGonagall with interest.  "I do believe Alecto and Amycus may yet learn something from you, my dear.  However, they will remove themselves to the dais and _keep silent_ from now on."

"Thank you, my lord," Narcissa said, advancing, feeling rather than seeing the other two wizards retreat.  "Well, Deputy Headmistress?  How shall we begin?" she inquired, using the end of her wand to tilt the other woman's chin to face her.  "Should we skip straight to _Crucio_ , or shall we engage in politer discourse, first?"

"Why be in such a rush?" McGonagall said, although her cheeks were flushed the bright crimson of humiliation.

"You're right," Narcissa agreed.  "Best let the lesson sink in.  _Anapneo!_ "

McGonagall coughed, choking on air.

Narcissa knew very well how distressing that particular spell could be when cast repeatedly; she flicked her wand, not bothering to incant again, until McGonagall was on her knees, choking and gasping.  " _Orbis!  Accio_ air!  _Protego totalum!_ "

McGonagall gasped as the Hall floor sucked her down as though it had turned to quicksand, then held her fast by the waist.  Her fists beat against the invisible barrier created by the _Protego_ as she struggled for air.  Narcissa estimated she would lose consciousness sooner rather than later, given the way she'd pushed the _Anapneo_.  Just when McGonagall's motions began to flag, Narcissa raised her wand again.  " _Aqua eructo!_ "

Water began to pool at McGonagall's chest, conjuring fresh panic in the older witch's face.  The water rose until it filled the semi-circular bubble, reaching McGonagall's nose and then eyes.  Still Narcissa held, awaiting a sign of capitulation from the older woman.

The witch's mouth opened and bubbles fell out; Narcissa _Finite_ 'd her spell, casting so that the spilling water parted before it reached her own skirts.  McGonagall coughed and sputtered, taking heaving gulps of air.

Narcissa didn't give her time to regroup.  " _Defodio_!" she incanted.

McGonagall screamed as a gash appeared in her shoulder.

" _Defodio!_ "  McGonagall's exposed abdomen.  " _Defodio!_ "  McGonagall's thigh.  " _Defodio!_ "  The small of McGonagall's back, barely visible above the floorline.

Narcissa took two steps forward and knelt, just out of the reach of McGonagall's arms; not that she supposed the woman had it in her to resist physically anymore.  "Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Narcissa said.  "Anything about these letters, perhaps?" she added, shaking them for emphasis, making sure her voice was warm, gentle.  Conversational.

"Surely you must… understand… my desire to protect… the children…" McGonagall gasped.

"Surely _you_ must realize my position," Narcissa said lowly.  "If you do not submit – if you do not give all evidence of your criminal activities to me – you will die.  Alecto and Amycus Carrow will most certainly teach here, with so many positions open, and the children will suffer.  I am forced to wonder whether you refuse because of the children or due to your own pride.  _Crucio!_ "

McGonagall's back tried to arch away from the pain, Narcissa noted dispassionately, but she was still stuck fast in the floor.

" _Finite_.  What do you have to say for yourself?" Narcissa echoed.

"I… I cannot simply –"

" _Crucio!_ " Narcissa barked, her hand steady on her wand.  She held the spell a fraction longer the second time, watching as the woman before her writhed as though she was being electrocuted, watching as her movements caused blood to seep through some of her wounds more swiftly, cut blood flow off from others.  " _Finite!_ "

She allowed McGonagall a moment a catch her breath.  Summoned a glass of water and helped her drink.

"Well?  Will you listen to reason?"

McGonagall met her eye.  "I see resistance will… do me little good," she rasped.

Narcissa felt jolted, as though from a dream.  She bit down on the exclamation of surprise that sat behind her teeth, waiting to be loosed.  "So glad you have seen things my way," she said instead, and it was as though she were hearing someone else speak from another room.  She stood.

"Dobby!"

Dobby appeared at her side in an instant.

"Dobby, the Deputy Headmistress is injured.  Please see her to the Hospital Wing and make certain her wounds are looked after."

Dobby nodded and disappeared with the woman in tow.

Narcissa hadn't known he could _do_ that.  At the earliest opportunity, she would have to sit him down and demand an enumeration of all House Elf skills.  She had a feeling she would be surprised at what they could accomplish.

"Narcissa," Voldemort said.

Narcissa licked her lips and raised her eyes.

Voldemort did not look avaricious or admiring or triumphant, or anything else that she expected to find writ on his features.  His eyes were soft when they gazed on her hands.

Narcissa realized she was still gripping her wand, white-knuckled.

Voldemort prized it from her by loosening her grip one finger at a time.  Narcissa flinched when he pried the last digit free, but the Dark Lord merely slipped her wand into her pocket and led her back to seat herself at the dais.  Charity materialized at her side with a glass of water and set it down on the dining table with a quiet rasp.  Narcissa looked around the Great Hall to find that only she, Charity, and the Dark Lord were present.  Voldemort must have ordered the Carrows away.

Narcissa had no memory of it.

"…my lord?"

Voldemort sighed.  "Narcissa, you must know I did not wish this on you," he said.  "That I was aware of your… dislike for causing others pain.  That I hoped the Carrows would be a boon to you.  Not a punishment."

Narcissa frowned.  "My lord.  I – appreciate your concern.  But, as you can see…"

Voldemort was silent for a time – how long, Narcissa could not have said – but eventually he spoke again.  "Revolution is violent, Narcissa.  _The tree of liberty must be watered, from time to time, with the blood of patriots_ , after all.  I am resigned to it."

"I am growing resigned to it, my Lord."

"Yes, you are," Voldemort said.  "But, you see, there are many who flock to my banner who seek blood rather than revolution.  Blood for blood's sake.  Do you understand?"

"I think so, my Lord," Narcissa said.

"Your idea about the Mudblood girls is a sound one, but it is a thought that would not have occurred to many of my followers.  They would rather cut those girls to the ground to watch them bleed.  But not you.  Not you," he repeated, patting her wand hand.  "You strive to do what is best; yet you are strong enough to do what must be done, even when you despise it.  That is a quality that is in short supply within my ranks."

"I thank you, my Lord," Narcissa said.  She stared down at his cold, dead-white hand over hers.  She had a vivid vision of tearing it off his wrist for a dissociative moment.

"When the time comes, you will be at my side," Voldemort went on.  "Your reach will stretch so far as your ambitions allow."

"I look forward to that day," she said.

Voldemort sighed, turned from her.  "Perhaps Severus Snape will take some of the weight off your shoulders.  He is a hard bastard," he commented idly.

"Yes, my lord."

"But Narcissa," he added in a darker voice, "when I send Severus here, you must watch him."

Narcissa jerked her head up, shaken free of her distress.

"Odd events have spiraled around Severus Snape," Voldemort went on.  "Evidence that Severus is involved in said events is circumstantial, of course; he is too clever to be linked to any wrongdoing directly.  Like you, Severus is one of my most valuable followers, and I don't wish to be rid of him unless I must.  You invite confidences, my dear.  Perhaps he will open up to you, if given the right… motivation."

Narcissa blinked at him.

"I do not ask you to do anything that would cause you discomfort," Voldemort said.

Narcissa realized, as she should have fifteen minutes ago, that Voldemort was being _careful_ of her _feelings_.  "I shall do whatever I must in order to advance our cause, my Lord."

Voldemort smiled at her.  "As you have so proved," he said, pushing the Head's chair back to stand.  "Perhaps the next time we see one another, it shall be under more pleasant circumstances."

"If you will it so, my Lord," Narcissa said, rising.

Voldemort took her hand and kissed it.

Then, he was gone.

For a long moment, Narcissa watched the doorway, fearful that Voldemort should return, or that he had left one of the Carrows behind.  When none of the three re-materialized, she let out the breath she had been holding and turned to Charity.

Charity was staring at Narcissa.  Her hands trembled at her sides.  She said nothing.  Narcissa allowed herself a moment to mourn the trust she'd coaxed from the other woman over their short association.

 _What next?  What next?_   The answer came to her with surprising swiftness.  "Come, Charity.  We must ensure that the Deputy Headmistress will recover from her ordeal."  Narcissa swept her cloak behind her with a flick of one arm and strode swiftly for the Hospital Wing.

Charity kept silent the entire way.  Narcissa had been irritated with her new handmaiden's insubordinate chatter only yesterday, but now the silence grated against her skin like a rasp.

Inside the Hospital Wing, Narcissa could see Minerva McGonagall laid out on one of the small student beds, white sheet tucked up under her chin.  The clinking of glass-on-glass to Narcissa's right meant that Madam Pomfrey was bustling about in her office.  She approached Minerva's bedside, but kept respectfully out of reach.

Minerva's features were slack and pale against the white bedclothes, almost as though the mind that animated her features was departed, entirely.

Suddenly, Narcissa's guts clenched, and she only controlled her roiling stomach through violent force of will.  She would _not_ embarrass herself in front of Pomfrey.

"Madam Pomfrey?  How is your patient?" Narcissa inquired.

Pomfrey adjusted her nurse's cap in one, jerky motion, then smoothed her apron: a nervous gesture Narcissa had seen in her once or twice before.  "She is as well as can be expected.  I she will make a complete recovery in a few days, but we shall have to see about any nervous complications due to the Cruciatus," Pomfrey reported.  "She's not a young witch anymore, though she'd curse me for saying it."

"You will keep me up to date on her condition?"

"Of course, Headmistress," Pomfrey said mildly, and Narcissa led the way from the Hospital Wing, Charity following in her wake.

Charity trailed Narcissa back up to her rooms, remembering, for once, to wait at the door until summoned inside.

"Come, help me out of these.  They're…" Narcissa said, looking down at her violet gown.  The pathways in her mind that once held polite discourse crumbled to fall into some dark ravine, and she paused, wordless.

"Yes, Headmistress," Charity said, and crossed the threshold, pulling the door nearly to the jamb behind her.  Her fingers trembled as she attacked the violet robes' many silk-wrapped buttons-and-loops.

"How is Africa sounding now, Miss Burbage?"

Charity's fingers fumbled at the stays.  "Very attractive, Headmistress."

"Then you may as well reconsider it," Narcissa said, feeling a pang in her chest as she imagined starting to cultivate another young Muggleborn witch like Charity from scratch.

Charity yanked so tenaciously on one of the stays at Narcissa's waistline that Narcissa jolted forward and back.  " _No_ , Headmistress.  Thank you.  If anything, I am ever more determined to remain in your service."

Narcissa gripped Charity's plucking fingers to still them, brought the woman woman 'round to face her.  "Miss Burbage," she warned.  "I am not sure what foolish, romantic notions of valor were instilled in you by the Order, but can you not yet see that the danger is very real, and your position at Hogwarts precarious?"

Charity gave Narcissa's palms a fierce squeeze.  "No, Headmistress; today's demonstration reminded me of the safety of Hogwarts' hallowed halls, and the far reach of your protection."

Narcissa swallowed and ducked her head in shame.

"I mean to say I am better informed of the dangers now than I have ever been," Burbage said in a hush, dark blue eyes intent.  "I choose to stay here and to make the difference I can, in the way that I can.  As you have," she said stoutly, and returned her attention to Narcissa's soiled gown.

Narcissa took in a breath that crackled through her lungs like ice.  "Thank you, Charity," she said after she was certain her voice would not betray her relief.

"Of course, Headmistress.  Would you like to hear your schedule for today?"

"Yes, thank you."

"This morning, you are to breakfast with the faculty.  You need to meet with the Constructionist Wizards for a discussion regarding repairs at nine-thirty.  You have a lunch meeting with the Minister for Magic at noon, and Professor Sinistra said she would appreciate a word about materials for the Astronomy classes next year.  She is willing to do that anytime after lunch… after that, Professor McGonagall…" Charity coughed around the name.  "Professor McGonagall wanted to discuss sending letters to the Muggleborn first-years.  Whether we… you, the faculty, that is… ought to at all."

Narcissa squared her shoulders.  "My midnight-blue robes, then; the ones with the lapels.  Dobby?"

Dobby appeared at Narcissa's side.  "Yes?  What is the Headmistress wanting of Dobby?"

Narcissa firmed her gaze, her chin, her lips.  She dared not tremble.  "Dobby, I would like every-other-hour reports on Minerva McGonagall's continued recovery.  I'm sure you can determine how best to deliver that news surreptitiously.  And I want a report from you on everything Elves can do that Wizards cannot do, or have forgotten how to do."

"House Elves is not usually writing these things," Dobby protested.

"I promise to keep your skills close," Narcissa swore, "but I must know of every advantage given me, Dobby.  Given _us_.  Do you understand?"

"Dobby is understanding more than Headmistress knows," Dobby said.

"I have a very high opinion, now, of what Dobby knows," Narcissa countered, trying hard to offer him a smile.

"Dobby is getting Mistress some tea, now," Dobby said, exchanging an incomprehensible few paragraphs with Charity solely with eyes and a few, taut gestures.

Charity must've understood him, however, because she nodded, resolute.

Narcissa pursed her lips in faint amused approval, something in her guts settling.  Standing between a House Elf and a Mudblooded servant, her fine, bloodstained robes at her feet, Narcissa let a cloak of calm and confidence spill across her shoulders.  She might have spilled blood ahead of her and behind her, but standing between these two creatures was the first moment she could kindle a belief in her survival and success, cup it in her palms and blow it to life.

"Very well," she said.  "Shall we get to work?"

* * *

A/N:

* * *

Well helloooo everyone! Hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Narcissa is one of my favorite characters to write in GoG. As readers have commented in the past, it's depressingly rare to come across competent, grown-up female characters of power. Narcissa is having to claw for hers, here. I'd love to know what you think!

In other, very sad news, this is the last chapter I have complete, so reviews are more important then ever.  I'm sorry this one is a little late; it was done, but I'm traveling again.  I'm in Salt Lake City as I type this - _whoa, hello mountains.  Whoa, hello salt plains._   Utah looks like another planet if you've never been here before.  


So, what's up, longtime readers? How's life? How did you like the chapter? Feedback is both motivation and growth,

-K


	26. The Between

After a time – there was no telling how long, in the Between, and Severus’s legs should have ached and he should’ve stunk and his shoes should’ve been torn to shreds, but there was none of that, either – he came upon a cottage in the wood.

When the path had begun to lead through a wood, Severus could not say.  The last thing he recalled was the whisper of the ocean, a strange sense of urgency pushing him on, and now here he was.

The cottage was the sort of ancient farmhouse that looked as though it had been clapped together in the sixteenth century and dutifully tended and mended ever since, with a patchwork of brick and mortar more or less worn and discoloured by wind and weather and time.  Wild roses climbed the gates, blossoming a vibrant pink-red, and daisies were planted at the windows.  A curl of smoke rose from the squat chimney.

Severus had seen gorgeous, sweeping landscapes that he could have scarcely imagined in his dreams, much less while coherent, but this was the first faint sign of any human habitation since his conversation with Dumbledore and Harry at King’s Cross.  Sometimes he felt it had been years since he’d heard another human voice, since he’d had a conversation; and suddenly he – misanthropic bat of the dungeons, he – was absolutely _sick_ for one.

The garden gate gave easily under Severus’s hand, and he walked out along a charming path of half-sunk, irregular stones that led to the cottage door.  Severus felt for his wand; there it was, reassuringly in his pocket.  This world had refused to present him any dangers so far, but he had not travelled so long only to fall prey to some hazard he could have avoided through vigilance.

He knocked at the door.  There was no sense in being rude, after all.  He thought he heard a muttered voice from within, so he took that for permission and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

Severus’s offices: an experimental potion bubbling away on the hob, a stack of marked and three stacks of unmarked Potions essays littering the desk, a hot cup of tea steaming away and leaving a ring on some poor unfortunate’s parchment.  The fire crackled cheerily, casting a golden glow on the braided hearthrug in silver-and-green.  For a moment, Severus found himself surprised by his surroundings, but he was not certain why he ought to have been: this had been precisely where he was headed, surely…

“Good,” Harry Potter said, where he stood by the fire.  “I’ll sit on this side of your desk and you can sit on the other, and you can yell at me for whatever you think I’ve done this time.  That is the way this goes, right?”

Severus stared.  For a long moment, it seemed odd – even worrying – that Harry was here, sitting across from him.

“Harry,” Severus said, striding to his desk and examining the papers there, “what are you doing here?  It’s late.”  He added the last in concession to his inexplicable panic at finding Harry in this place, when Harry Potter at Hogwarts – even Harry Potter in his office – was a familiar sight.  Since Voldemort had been vanquished, Potter had spent an increasing amount of time here.  At first, Severus had been worried Harry expected Severus to entertain him in some way, but increasingly they sat together while Harry completed his homework and Severus marked things, punctuated by an exclamation over their respective horrid lots in life in a way that even Severus had begun to find rather companionable.

Harry groaned theatrically, slumping into the seat across from Severus.

“Only small children are so dramatic about _bedtime_ ,” Severus said with a raised brow, dragging an essay forward to read, giving Potter time to sort himself out.  He’d learned in that once-forgotten summer that when Potter got like this – all heavy sighs and rebellious frustration –it was best to give him time to think rather than demanding capitulation straightaway.

Sure enough, after a brief space of silence, Harry leaned forward to peer at the papers littering Severus’s desk.  “I can’t believe you became a Potions Master,” he said.  “Old Sluggy never did like you.”

Severus cleared his throat.  “Is that what Lupin says?  I’ve warned you about grilling him when he’s moping over Black,” he said quietly, placing the quill aside and abandoning the essay for the time being.

“Have you,” Harry said, levelly.

“A half-dozen times,” Severus returned.  “And dredging up the past with Professor Lupin is… unkind of you.”

Harry flushed.  “I guess it would be, rather,” he said.  He shrugged, full of adolescent awkwardness.  “Sorry,” he added – again, rather dramatically – and rose to examine some of the books on Severus’s shelves.

“It’s _all right_ ,” Severus said.  “You are allowed to be mistaken, you know.  So help me, we’re going to weed out this guilt complex of yours if I have to labor over it like some ancient granddarm over her prize petunias.”

Harry blinked, then dissolved into laughter.

Severus’s lips quirked as he waited for Harry to get hold of himself.  Harry’s laugh was trying-to-be-cool warring with a wild, helpless joy.  “ _Petunias_ ,” he wheezed.

“There,” Severus said.  “That’s better.  Now,” he said, placing his hand on Harry’s shoulder, “if it wasn’t _Obscura_ you needed help with, or Charms homework, then why have you come to see me?”

Harry’s shoulder was tight under Severus’s hand, almost as though he was uncomfortable with the touch.  Severus frowned and dropped the friendly clasp.

“Harry?” he said.

“I was curious,” Harry blurted, drawing himself up.  “About why you’re here.”

Severus sighed.  “Harry, we’ve been through this.”

“Well… I guess maybe I need to hear it again,” Harry said, jaw sticking out stubbornly.

"I promised you once that I should not leave Hogwarts.  And so long as I am here, I will do all that I can to ensure that Professor Lupin is able to remain as well… no matter what Madam Umbridge has to say about it,” he added under his breath.

Harry looked around Severus’s office as if he were grounding himself in the familiar surroundings… or reminding himself where he was.  “When he tutored me, I always understood.  He’s a good teacher,” Harry insisted.  

“So everyone keeps telling me.  Your Miss Granger especially.  I believe she thinks that if she praises Lupin to the heavens, I shall forgive him all his previous trespasses.  Or perhaps learn from his example?”

“You and Remus get along, though, now,” Harry said, but cautiously, as though he were feeling his way.  “You’ve known him forever.”  He scuffed his shoe against the carpet.  “…far longer than me, at any rate.”

“Really, Potter, what’s this about?” Severus said, beginning to feel the prick of genuine worry.  “Remus and I are long since past our differences, surely you know as much.  Are you worried about something it is that you believe you have done wrong?  Or _not_ done?”  Something in Harry’s face, Severus could not have said what, alerted him that this was the truth of the matter.  “You must learn to accept that there are things beyond the locus of your control.  Think what a terrible world it would be if we truly were able to snap our fingers and call whatever we wanted to heel.  Think about how boring and narrow and predictable life would be; how incurious we would become, how spoilt.”  He leaned forward to drive his point home.  “ _Everyone would be Dudley Dursley_ ,” he confided.

Harry was startled into a second bark of laughter.

“Your saving people thing,” Severus said.  “It’s good – it shows that you want to  _do_ good and _be_ good, which is –”

Harry’s features split into a wild grin that reminded Severus of Black.  “…good?”

“Yes,” Severus said with a brief, censorious glare.  “But your fumbling attempts at defeating the greatest Dark Wizard of his generation have placed my nerves in dire jeopardy, and that was when I couldn’t have cared less if you’d disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“…thanks for that.”

Severus looked up to see such an uncertain expression on Harry’s face that he thought perhaps he ought not continue.  But the importance of the discussion outweighed the boy’s discomfort.  “You have persevered through stubbornness and inherent talent, it’s true… but also through a frankly terrifying number of circumstances in which you were in the _right place_ at the _right time_ , or spoke to the _right person_ , or your enemies underestimated you.  For Merlin’s sake, Voldemort’s defeat hinged on the off-chance you might manage to befriend Draco Malfoy.”

“What?” Harry said, blankly.

Severus manfully resisted rolling his eyes.  “In short, battles are won when the right witch or wizard fights alongside you.  It makes  _sense_ that it be me: I bear some guilt for Sirius’s rash actions as well.  Show me the respect you gave Miss Granger and Mister Weasley when they were _eleven_ and _allow me to help you_.”

Severus thought he’d been getting to Potter, but at the mention of Black, all signs of tentative capitulation disappeared.

“Don’t insult Sirius,” he snapped.

“Merlin’s sake, I won’t then,” Severus said.  “I’ll just traipse off to the Land of the Dead and fetch him for you without complaint, question, or even discussion.  Is that what you wish?”

Harry went white.  “That – _that's_ your reason?  You’re here for Sirius Black?”

Severus frowned in concern.  “ ‘Here’?”

“You really can’t tell the difference, can you?” he muttered, raking both hands through his hair.

“Cease immediately,” Severus said dryly.  “When you do that to your hair, you look just like your father.”

“I could help you,” Harry offered suddenly.  “I know where he is; I know where to find him, I can guide you.”  His features closed down into familiar, stubborn lines.  “You don’t know how valuable that is, you should take me up on it.  Otherwise, you could wander around in here for ages more, like a lightning bug caught in a jar.”

Severus blanched.

Harry scraped a foot on the ground like a child, but then squared his shoulders and faced Severus head-on, bracing himself.  “But we’ve got to get one thing straight, okay?” he said.  "Because the part where you’re, like, my dad? …It really creeps me out.”

A half-dozen details filtered from Severus’s eye to his brain for the first time: the way Potter stood a little bit taller, a hair broader, the way his eyes shone not grass-green but muddy hazel.

“…James?” Severus croaked.

“And the other shoe drops,” the boy replied.  “I was wondering if you were about to try and tuck me in, next.”

Severus couldn’t help but stare.  “But – you’re practically a child,” he blurted, then winced.

Potter squinted.  “And you got awfully old, didn’t you?” he said, eyeing Severus up and down.

“It’s been a difficult life,” Snape returned, dry wit proceeding ahead of him like a charmed Snitch.

“A difficult time, looking after Harry Potter, you mean,” James said.  “Well.  Did you want my help, then, or not?”

And Severus swallowed past something so large it could only be his pride.

“James.  James Potter,” the young man repeated as they trudged along the dirt road through the wood.

The same wood?  Impossible to tell.

Severus huffed a breath.  “Yes, James Potter.  For the twelfth time.”

“I’m not going to stop, either,” James said stubbornly.  “Time works strangely, here, and so does memory.  If I don’t keep telling you, you might forget.”

“Is it my fault you’re still so young that I confuse you for a student?”

Severus drew himself up short in horror, because the argument could be made that it _was_ , in fact, Severus’s fault that James would never grow a day older.

“I’m not young.  I was a strapping twenty-something –”

“You were twenty-one,” Severus said.  “How old were you when you had Harry?”

“Nineteen.  Nearly twenty.  Plenty old enough,” James said.

Severus decided that discretion was the better part of valour.  “Sirius Black,” Severus said.  “You told me –”

In the way of the place, the forest was suddenly behind them and they were standing on a bluff overlooking the sea.  In the misty distance, Severus could make out the harsh peaks and crags of Azkaban.  A lonely seabird cried out over the water.

“Of course,” he said.

“Never said it would be easy,” James returned with a very familiar smirk.

The sun rose and set three times before he and James stood on the beach below, looking out across the water to the dark crags and towers of the Wizarding prison.  James had neither rested nor eaten, but Severus was not sure if this was a sign of distress or simply normal for the dead; whenever he woke, James would be staring off in the direction of Azkaban.

Now that the travel was over and they were ready to face Black – and anyone else within Azkaban, though Severus wondered if anyone here could share the same exact nightmare – Severus was plagued by doubt.

“You have failed to rescue him,” Severus said, bluntly.  “What makes you think I shall have any more success?”

James squirmed.  “He always thinks he’s hallucinating me, and sometimes he forgets I’ve ever come for him before.  Must’ve done it a lot when he was alive and stuck in the real deal.  He won’t suppose he’s hallucinating you.  Who’d want to do something like that?” he added with a wise nod.

Severus acknowledged this with a roll of his eyes.

James shuffled his feet.  “Whatever.  Go get Sirius and come straight back to the cottage, but just –”  He paused, biting his lower lip.  “Just be sure you’re thinking of me when you come in.  I’ll need to talk to him before he goes back.”

“You will not accompany me?” Severus said.

James shook his head.  “Like I said, I think I’ll do more harm than good, Snivellus.”

“You should hardly boast about tormenting a young boy so badly you made him cry.”

James looked torn between horror and admiration.  “Merlin, you did become a professor!”

“You behave yourself while I’m gone,” Severus told him, just to twist the blade.  When he turned to face the water, a pale skiff held a paler man in a dark cloak.

“I suppose you’ll want a coin,” Severus said, and stepped inside to be rowed to the island.

Severus nodded to the man in the skiff, then picked his way through an overgrown, thorny path to the battered wooden gates of Azkaban, which swung open to admit him.

The Between produced three-dimensional backdrops: the wind whistled through the ballistraria; the old wooden doors creaked on their hinges; and Severus felt cool, if not freezing, in the shadow of the place.  From living things, however, there was no sound, not even the whisper of mouse feet on stone that was the hallmark of one of these draughty, ancient places.  In the waking world, Azkaban shook with the screams of the imprisoned.  It was icy-cold with Dementor-mist, and populated with guards who sneered or worse, wore the same, empty-eyed faces as the criminals they purported to watch.

The contrast turned Severus’s blood to ice: it was not for Dementors that Severus drew his wand and hid it in the folds of his sleeve, but from a more primal, shapeless foreboding that grew eyes and teeth and hid behind the silence.

Severus had begun to despair of meeting anyone again in this forsaken place when he first distinguished the wailing of a man from the wailing of the wind.  He crept forward, wand brought to bear, and turned the corner, heels clicking against the lifeless, grey stone, to find Sirius Black, or some shadow of him.

The man within the cell was hardly a man at all, more a collection of bone and sinew with thin, unhealthy skin stretched taut as a drum to contain the lot, dark eyes unseeing, teeth bared in a rictus of pain and despair behind a straggly, grey-streaked, filthy beard: every privation Black had experienced distilled to its darkest essence.

“Severus,” hissed the apparition.  “Severus Snape.”

“I –” Severus began, though his carefully planned opening salvos seemed to have fallen straight out of his head.

“Come to see Azkaban’s handiwork, have you?  Is it all you’d hoped for?” the ghost rasped, and Severus could barely recognize the other man’s voice through his parched, scratched throat.  “I’d hate to be a disappointment,” he added, spitting at Severus’s feet.

Severus saw blood in the spittle and recoiled.

“You liked it, didn’t you, to hear that I was the one who betrayed my friends,” he said in a voice like the growl of an animal.

Severus had.  He’d felt smug in the wake of Lupin’s pain, the Headmaster’s, but dwelling on that dark satisfaction would do no one any good.  “Do you know where you are?” he asked instead, ignoring Sirius’s question for the goad it was.

The simple question only enraged Sirius further.  He gestured towards his cell, though Severus didn’t dare shift his gaze from the other man for fear he might miss some fleeting expression that could steer Severus through the labyrinthine turns of the other man’s lunacy and despair.  “ _Do you know where you are?_ ” Sirius quoted darkly.  “If you’ve come to gauge my madness, then I’ve a trick or two up my sleeve, yet, Snape, to keep me sane.  I’ll see you under _Crucio_ first!”

Severus refrained from sighing with greatest effort.  James was wrong; surely a friend could do better at such an endeavor than an enemy.  “If you are referring to your Animagus form –”

“Who told you about that?” Sirius hissed, lurching to his feet and stumbling against the bars, gripping them with knarled hands aged by dark and damp and thin rations.  _“Who told you?  WHICH ONE OF THEM WAS IT, SNAPE?  I’LL KILL THEM!”_

Severus slid back a step, wary fingers twitching for his wand.  “Pettigrew, it was Pettigrew… for Merlin’s sake, Black, you know it was.  And he told all the Death Eaters of your Animagus form... all your little tricks... it’s how he caught _them_ , Potter and Lily.”  Severus stopped, then, because he could hear the tightness in his throat in his voice, and could not stand to think that Black could hear the same.

“No.  No.  No,” Sirius chanted, shaking his head.  “No, no, not Peter.  He _wouldn't_.  It – it had to have been Lupin, somehow, maybe Jamie didn’t trust me anymore, he pulled a double-switch…”

And the flame that had refused to kindle in the face of Black’s abuses suddenly burst into life.  “Remus would rather die!”

Sirius froze.  Severus stared past scraggly, oily hair in a state that his had never approached and into eyes like stone.  “You call him _Remus_ ,” Sirius said.

Severus turned his head to watch Sirius prowl the length of his cage.  “So I do,” he said.  “Sometimes.”

“You – you and him,” Sirius said, eyes widening with fear and horror.  “You were in on this together.”

“You’re raving,” Severus snapped.

“You were in on this together!” Sirius repeated, whirling, his eyes a shade of madness Severus had only seen in Barty Crouch.  “You planned it, the two of you.  James and Lily…” Sirius said, slumping to the filthy cell floor, “…and poor little Harry…”  Sirius tacked up, slumping suddenly.

Severus felt the energy go out of him as well, and when his voice emerged again, he was quiet, though no less frustrated or infuriated.  “Harry’s alive, Black; surely you remember that much.”

“The Boy Who Lived,” Sirius agreed, but he wasn’t meeting Severus’s eyes.  In fact, he gave all appearance of having forgotten that Severus was there at all.

Severus was torn.  Part of him wanted to rage at Sirius for even suggesting that Remus had betrayed the Potters.  The part of him that was a fool Gryffindor, the part of him that had agreed to this mad quest in the first place, wanted to hammer at Sirius’s psyche until he accepted that they were in the Between.  But the Slytherin part of him bolstered him and quieted him and told him to use this space of silence, free of mad recriminations, to _think_.

Severus examined Sirius’s cell, first.  The stone was uneven, mostly, though it seemed smoother in places: from pacing, from the heap of straw in the corner, to the bucket in the other corner, and back.  There was a pile of newspapers stacked against the wall that seemed to serve as a chair if the sag in their centre could be believed.  There was an incessant drip through a crack in the stone ceiling that splashed to the flagstones below, creating a tiny hollow that held water.

First, Severus wondered if the dripping played a part in leaving Sirius this mad.  Then it occurred to him how long that leak had to be there to create the little hollow below it.  Finally, he wondered if Sirius had ever gotten so thirsty that he’d sipped from it.  Listening to the man’s scraped-raw throat, Severus knew he must have.

And suddenly, Severus’s old, old rage dropped its sword and shield and quietly retreated, and he felt queerly hollow and uncertain in the space it left behind.  He lowered himself until he was seated directly across from Sirius Black and watched, and waited.

Sirius’s gaze darted to Severus and away with increasing discomfort.

Severus, for his part, said nothing.  Instead, he examined the threadbare edges of his own robes – surely his imagination, and surely he could have thought up something better.  Warmer.  He ran his fingers down the slightly-rough, cast-iron edges of the cell bars, marvelling at their _tactility_.

Finally, “what are you doing?  Why are you still here?” burst out of Sirius.

Severus looked up curiously.  “Is there a reason I should have gone?”

“They never stay; nobody _stays_ ,” Sirius muttered.  “Besides, you’re too – too _middle-aged_ \- to be Snivellus.  What, are you supposed to represent my fucking father or something?  Because I couldn’t care less about what he’d think of me.  I think _less than nothing_ about my father, you hear me?”

“I am no one’s father,” Severus said.  He felt the oddness in it, the way he’d said it twice, now, in one form or another, but the unusual statement was as a key to a lock, allowing Severus to open the door of the other man’s thoughts and stride confidently through.

If imprisonment in the real Azkaban was anything like Sirius’s memory of it, could Sirius truly have grown to adulthood here, or was he still a child in his heart, in his head?  Was he like James Potter, frozen in time at the age of twenty-one?

Black was still babbling, something about  _Jamie_ that caused Severus to snap to attention.

“James?” he said.  “You remember James coming here to speak with you?”

“They all speak to me.  Lily, Jamie, even little Harry sometimes,” Sirius said.  “But why you?  I don’t understand.”

Severus placed his wand on one knee.  “You are not in Azkaban.”

Sirius barked a laugh, but it was a sad, pinched-off sound that was half a sob.

“Black…”  Severus paused, marshalled all his logic and wrestled the panic in his chest until it lay gasping and pinned.  “You are correct in one thing, Black.  You would not imagine me as your rescuer.  Would you?”

Sirius looked up at him through grimy lashes wet with tears.

 _Please_ , Severus thought, sudden and unexpected as a blade.  “You escaped Azkaban; you found Pettigrew.  You reunited with Lupin and Harry.  You must remember Harry.  Harry, your godson.  He turns seventeen this summer.  You were back with the Order.  But then,” _in a foolhardy attempt to prove yourself immortal_ , “you fought Bellatrix Lestrange in the Department of Mysteries and fell through the Veil to the Between.  And that is where we are, now; I have come to retrieve you.”

Sirius shook his head.  “Those were dreams.”

“No,” Severus said, firm.  “That was the reality.  This is the dream.  There is no Azkaban here save the one you have built.”  He gave the other man a moment and then cast _Alohamora_ on the rusted iron enclosure.

It swung open with a squeak of protest.

Once again Severus became aware that the only sounds he could hear were the wind racing through every crack and cranny of the ancient fort, the creaking of doors and gates.  It was as though he and Sirius Black were the only living things in the whole world.

A change came over Sirius Black’s features, then: a combination of desperation and mulishness and hope.

He pushed himself to his feet and tottered there for a minute, like a drunkard.

“Fine,” he said.  “Fine, let’s just see how far we get.

Severus did not so much lead the way as serve as a walking stick.  Oddly, Sirius did stink and look as though he needed a change of clothing, but Severus wasn’t sure how to provide either a bath or fresh robes to a man who would not generate cleanliness or warm, soft garments for himself.  He remembered James’s words, though, about memory.  Snape still wasn’t certain whether or not the other man truly believed him, so he did something he had not done since he was a child, to keep Black focussed on the here-and-now... such as it was.

He babbled.

“We are in the Between.  You are not in Azkaban.  You have not been in Azkaban for many years.  I am sent here to retrieve you.  We are going to cross the water, now,” he added, helping Sirius into the skiff; the other man settled with a rattling sigh.  “We are in the Between…”

Severus might have expected Sirius to snap at or interrupt him, but instead his gaze went faraway, as though he were focussing intently on Severus’s voice; and occasionally he would issue a decisive nod when Severus said that he was no longer in Azkaban.

When they reached the other side of the water, Sirius seemed to rouse himself a little.  “The Order sent you?”

Severus rejoiced in questions; it meant Sirius’s brain was beginning to untangle itself from the dark threads of his nightmares.  “No; Remus and the children and I fashioned the spell.”

“You and Remus,” Sirius said, brow furrowed.

Severus hoisted him up underneath one arm, hoping Black no longer saw this as suspicious.  “Yes,” Severus said.  “It had to be someone who had a connection to Death, or he would have come, himself.”

Sirius stared.

“I died,” Severus said, “a little.  Draught of the Living Death is close enough for this place.”

“So Remus asked you,” Sirius said, “and you agreed…”

“Yes.”

“…to come here and fetch me,” Black went on, cautiously, steadying himself on the edge of the skiff as he climbed out.

“Yes,” Snape returned.

Sirius stopped walking, suddenly, gazing into the distance.

Severus’s head snapped up.  “…Black?”

“No,” Sirius said.  “You can’t be here.  You wouldn’t be here just for me –”

“Yes.  Yes, I would,” Snape said, gripping him by the shoulders.  “You are not in Azkaban.  You are with me, in the Between.”

“How did you get here?  Why are you here?” Sirius demanded, and he sounded almost angry, now.  “You’re not here for _me_ , the Order didn’t _order you_ , so explain it to me!”

“Because if I did not go, Harry would have done so in my stead!” Severus growled.  “He would have leapt here without any idea of how to extricate himself, like that fool jump he made into the Chamber last year!  He was the only other one of us who had died.”

Sirius’s lip curled.  “And why should you care if he did?”

“ _Why should I…?!_ ” Severus growled, then trailed off into stony silence.  Why, indeed?  How to explain everything that had transpired last year?  “He was much damaged after he lost you,” Severus muttered.

“And you stepped into the breach, is that it?”

Severus felt his shoulders climbing up to his ears.  “Not at first,” he bit off.  “At first, I was teaching him control through Occlumency.  Then, eventually… breaches were forged,” he said tartly.  “I consider it my duty to prevent him from rushing where angels fear to tread.”

“Merlin, my mind is a fucked-up place,” Black muttered, dragging his hands through his hair.

Snape stared at him, folding his arms in his classical intimidate-the-student-body posture.  “Clearly.  Now, I had some help in finding you.”

“Did you,” Black said, peering over both shoulders, back over the water where the ferryman waited impassively.  “You haven’t seen my _parents_ here anyplace, have you?  Since this is the – the Beyond.”

“The Between.  And no,” Severus said, mentally confirming his image of Black as frozen in his early twenties.  In light of that, and of Sirius stumbling forward so badly onto shore that Severus had to catch him at the forearms, Severus deigned to be merciful.  “Surely, Black, you cannot have but so many allies that are deceased.”

Black’s skeletal grip released Severus’s arms the moment he gained his footing.  “Is – is it – Jamie?”

Severus felt a prickle along the back of his neck and turned to find the grim man standing at the prow of the skiff was staring at the pair, or rather that his dark hood was oriented towards them: Severus could not make out his eyes beneath its black expanse.

 _YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE_ , he said.

Severus blinked.  “I…”  He cleared his throat.  “No, we do not.”

“We’ll be out of your hair in no time,” Sirius croaked.  “That is, er, your... metaphorical...”

The ferryman stared for another, eerie moment.  _ASK POTTER ABOUT THE HALLOWS._

“Will do,” Sirius babbled.  “ _Come on, Snivellus._ ”

 _ASK POTTER ABOUT THE HALLOWS,_ the ferryman repeated.

“We _will_ ,” Sirius replied, grabbing hold of Severus’s sleeve and tugging him away from the shore with both hands.

They strode swiftly away until they were surrounded once again by forest – although Severus was relatively certain that they only were because he  _expected_ them to be – before pausing for breath.

“So.  Death,” Sirius said.

Severus shook his head.  “Death is not a _personage_ , no matter what the stories may imply.”

“He asked after the _Hallows_ ,” Sirius prodded.

“Veritable proof of his duplicity,” Severus said, “as the Hallows are a children’s story writ to underlie the finite nature of life.”  He frowned darkly.  “But for the fact that Dumbledore stated he’d sent Harry the Resurrection Stone.  _Sent_ it.  Odd choice of words.  Perhaps it was delivered… supposing it exists.”

“That’s not coincidence, Snape!” Sirius shouted, waving his arms, “if Dumbledore mentioned it and _Death_ mentioned it!”

“That was not _Death_ ,” Severus protested, striding forward – forward being as close as one could get to a direction in that unseelie place.  “But I will ask your Jamie about it if you so desire.”

“James,” Sirius muttered, and Severus paused.

All around them, the forest was quiet: wind blew the leaves, and the leaves rustled, and branch twisted against branch, but there was no birdsong, no skitter of small animals as they darted through the underbrush, no low hum of insects.  Still, the sun – or something like it – shone dappled patterns on the ground, and the green perfume of growing things hung in the air, and it was a quiet and pleasant place, if a lonesome one.

“What?” Sirius said.  “What is it?”

Severus scarcely knew how to begin.  He was not skilled at human interaction as Albus was; he could not charm people like Potter.  Perhaps the direct route would do; it seemed the only path open to a one such as Severus Snape.  “As we left, you said, _let’s see how far I get_.  How far you get before what, Black?"

Black shuffled his feet, looking so like one of Severus’s recalcitrant students caught in a falsehood that Severus felt suddenly on far more familiar ground.

“Black,” he pressed.  Perhaps the old wounds were lanced, but they could re-infect at any time.  “How many times have you tried to leave?” he said, in his Remus-est of voices.

Sirius glanced up and Severus swallowed, kept his expression neutral through sheer force of will.  Somehow, Black looked even worse in the sunlight.  His lashes were still damp, and his cheeks were hollowed with lack of food and drink.  He was parchment-pale and grime was smudged across a painfully sharp jawline, and his hair was full of grease.  His clothing hung off of his too-slender frame, and the expression on his face – so suspicious, so wary, like an abused dog before an open palm, not knowing if the morsel being offered is safe to take.

“Black,” Severus tried.  He cleared his throat.  “Sirius,” he said, and he seemed to have borrowed Remus’s soft tones again – he’d never said Sirius’s name like that, like the name meant something to him.

Black ducked his head and lifted one, bony shoulder.  “Dunno,” he said dully.

Severus’s lips thinned with worry.  He could end up visiting Azkaban and convincing a ruined Black all over again if he did not find something to anchor the man to reality.  “There’s a cottage nearby,” Severus said, and prayed it was true.  “There’s a cottage very close to here, where you can get clean and eat something, and perhaps we might even find robes that could fit you.”

“And Jamie will be there,” Sirius echoed, but it didn’t sound like a query.  It sounded dull-edged, as though Black were an Imperius victim who didn’t know any better than to repeat what Severus had told him.

“And James will be there,” Snape replied.  “Come along, Black; we wouldn’t want to keep him waiting.”  He took two steps forward to find that Black was standing in the middle of the pathway... fading.

“ _No_ ,” Severus said, and lunged forward.

To his shock, he caught hold of Black’s arm.  Suddenly, the man was solid as anything was in the Between.

“Sorry,” Black muttered, not meeting his eye.

“All right,” Severus said, absently.  Merlin, how was he to keep track of the man?

There was nothing for it.

“Take my hand,” Severus said.

For just a moment, Sirius Black much like his old self, eyeing Severus disdainfully.

“And we shall never speak of it henceforth and ever again,” Severus snapped.  “I have gone to all the trouble of fetching you; the least you can do is oblige me by doing everything you can to avoid returning to that dark, miserable oubliette of a place.”

Black eyed him warily, but allowed Severus to reach for his hand and squeeze it firmly.  “This is full-moon lunacy,” he rasped.

“And you’d know, wouldn’t you?  You and your friends,” Severus said, tugging him along.

“Yes,” Black said.  “Yes, me and Peter and James and Remus have known madness.”

“You’re a veritable Cheering Charm,” Severus observed.  “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“No,” Sirius replied.  “But keep talking.”

Snape snuck a look at the other man to find that his gaze was slightly sharper than before, more focussed.  He searched for something else to say; besides barbed banter or outright violence, he wasn’t sure how to approach a conversation with Sirius Black.  “Lupin will be beyond grateful to see you.  Expect to be soaked with many a tear.”

“Remus,” Black breathed.  “He’s still alive?”

Severus was brought to a halt.  “What?  Yes, he’s alive; of course he’s alive.”  A dreadful thought occurred to him.  “You haven’t _seen him here_ , have you?”

“N-no.  I mean – yes,” Black admitted.  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean anything.  I’ve lost my mind, here.  Real Azkaban didn’t manage it.  And yet.”

“Oh,” Severus replied, not certain what he should say to this.  “Oh, well.  I suppose that doesn’t mean much, then.”  He swallowed and turned to tug Black once more down the path; Black stumbled after.  “Do you feel tired?”

“Yes.  No,” Black said, after a beat.  “I’m exhausted, but I’ll stay just this exhausted no matter how fast we walk or what we do.  I think.”

Severus thought about what might have happened to him if he had died an angry, embittered man; what traps might have lay in wait for him, and suddenly he was furious.  Somehow he had thought that people got what they _deserved_ here; that the righteous were rewarded and the evil punishéd.  Instead, those who were strong in themselves traversed the world with nothing to slow them, and those who had experienced tribulation were doomed to experience it over again until they learned better – if they ever could push themselves beyond their horror – just as in the rest of human existence.

The lesson never changed.  The path never altered.  It was more concrete in the Between, more pointed maybe, but _all the same_.  There he was, dragging Sirius Black out of perdition and despite their shared enmity, Sirius was already just another person he was yanking upward half against his will, someone who had to be convinced he was good, and worthy.

Merlin – he was a _professor_ , wasn’t he?  That was the job description, wasn’t it?  All along, he’d been so sure that he stumbled headfirst into the profession –

This means that Harry was _right to insist he stay at Hogwarts_.

Merlin, he must never know.  Severus would never live it down.

So this was where he was meant to be, was it?  Dragging Sirius Black up behind him?  _Fine_.  Severus knew himself, now, and that was something.  Even his darkest self, even his worst mistakes pointed to it.  He tried to destroy his own world, once, and he failed at it.  He failed at it because it was the antithesis of who he was.  It was in his fabric to carry a torch ahead for others, so they could see the pitfalls where he had stumbled.

Draco Malfoy had tried to tell him this, but he ignored facing his own nature because it frightened him; the responsibility of it frightened him; the faith it implied made him feel like an imposter.

But he wasn’t.  Severus knew himself, now, and –

The cottage was the sort of ancient farmhouse that looked as though it had been clapped together in the sixteenth century and dutifully patched and tended to ever since, with new brickwork and cleaner mortar shining in places.  Wild roses climbed the gates, blossoming a vibrant pink-red, and daisies were planted at the windows.  A curl of smoke rose from the squat chimney.

“I’ve... been here, before,” Severus said.  He turned to look at Black.

Sirius’s face was transported, shining.  He’d gained two stone from one breath to the next, his cheeks flush with colour, his filthy clothing replaced by smart wizarding robes circa 1970.  He was in his early twenties.

“Of course you haven’t been here; this is Godric’s Hollow,” Sirius said.

The garden gate gave easily under Severus’s hand, and he walked out along a charming path of half-sunk, irregular stones that led to the cottage door, hand still firmly tucked into Black’s, afraid of letting him go lest he slip.  Severus felt for his wand with his left; there it was, reassuringly in his pocket.  This world had refused to present him any dangers so far, but he had not travelled so long only to fall prey to some hazard he could have avoided through vigilance.

He knocked at the door.  There was no sense in being rude, after all.  He thought he heard a muttered voice from within, so he took that for permission and stepped inside, closing the door behind them.

And then Severus was watching a nightmare unfold in stop-motion photography.

FLASH.  There were three people in the room, two at the base of the stairs, one halfway up.

FLASH.  The man standing at the base of the stairs was Lord Voldemort.

FLASH.  _Take Harry and run!_

FLASH.  Lily spins on the stair.  She half-stumbles.  She darts up.

Someone is holding him by the shoulders.  “Severus.  Severus!”

FLASH.  There are three people in the room, two at the base of the stairs, one halfway up.

FLASH.  The man standing at the base of the stairs isn’t a man at all.

FLASH.  _Take Harry and run!_

FLASH.  Lily spins on the stair.  Severus catches sight of her eyes, sees the moment she fully understands her position, sees her death.

“Snape.  _Snape_.”

FLASH.  There are five people in the room.  Two at the door.  One is tugging at his hand, the other is holding him by both shoulders and saying something over and over.  Of the other two, one is at the base of the stairs, one is halfway up.

FLASH.  The love of his life is standing on the stair: she is about to die.  The man at the base of the stair is immaterial: she is all that matters.  For a moment, she catches his eye.  She looks relieved to see him there before she remembers who he is and what that means.

So she runs; of course she runs.

FLASH: _Take Harry and go_ _– Snape – Severus, stop.  It’s not – I know it looks – can you look at me?_

FLASH: There are five people in the room.  Two of them are shouting.  The hand in his is weak, dissolving, sliding apart.  It’s like gripping wet sand.

FLASH: Red hair – green eyes.  _She is going to die, Severus –_ do _something, do something –_

FLASH: She spins on the stair – stumbles –

Wait, wait, there is something he discovered.  There is something he _knows_.  That he has the power to affect this world.  That he can move through it, if – if what?

If he knows who and what he is, and he is not afraid.

Severus breaks away from the door and they dart up the stairs – all together, Lily lifted from her feet, and into the baby’s room.

FLASH: The baby is shrieking, the baby – Harry – knows something is terribly wrong.

“Take Harry and run,” Lily says, and hands Severus the baby.

He knows there is something wrong with this.  He knows he shouldn’t be the one left with Harry – something has gone terribly wrong.  But somehow, he manages to dart down the stairs and out into the wood, and –

Severus stood, huffing, tears streaking both cheeks.

“I tried to tell you.”

Severus startled, stumbling backward.  “What – what was –?”

“I tried,” Potter repeated, as though he were trying to convince Severus of something, when Severus was still trying to place himself in space and time.  He looked down at his empty arms.

After all that, he hadn’t managed to save the baby.  The feeling of horror and despair was indescribable; he was entrusted with something small and breakable, that was now destroyed –

Severus gulped a gasp of air.  _Harry is all right: Harry is at Hogwarts._ Severus had to picture him sitting down to lunch with Granger to get his heart back to something like a normal rhythm.

“Godric’s Hollow is always like that,” Potter was going on.  “It’s my fault.”

“W-what?”  Severus couldn’t imagine what could motivate Potter to keep that scene replaying again and again.

“I get trapped in it once in awhile, myself,” Potter admitted, scrubbing at the back of his neck.  “It’s hard to – it’s hard to push past it.”

“That one’s – yours,” Severus managed, raking a hand through the hair that had fallen into his eyes.  “Your Azkaban.”

Potter tilted his head to the side, his eyes suddenly too old in his young face, too knowing.

“...also mine?” Severus wondered, the realization growing in him like the blossom of some poisonous flower, tingling through him.  “I’ve been here before, I entered, I –  You said that Sirius forgets you’ve come for him – how many times did I come in, how many times did I...?”

A second realization shuddered through Severus with more force than the first.  “Black,” he gasped.  “Sirius, I let go of him –”  He staggered to his feet and ran for the cottage.

“Snape –” James got out, and took off after him.

Severus ignored him, throwing open the door, searching the cottage at Godric’s Hollow frantically, ignoring the scene before him – he _knew who he was_ , Severus was here to make the way, create the path, he could not fall by the wayside himself – and found Sirius pressed into a corner, his edges bleeding Azkaban-grey, lips moving soundlessly.

“Black, Black,” Severus shouted, and hauled him to his feet and shoved him out of the cottage.  Black fell, gasping, to the earth, or what passed for it, here.

Severus collapsed beside him, flipping over onto his back to gaze at the bright sky.  His hand had fallen amongst the thorns of the roses alongside the path, but so long as he didn’t yank himself away, it did no harm.

James Potter entered his field of vision, worried hazel eyes blink-blinking as he leaned over the pair of them.  “You’re all right,” he said, uncertainly.

 _Twenty-one.  He’s twenty-one_ , Severus thought unaccountably.  _Lots of boys still have a few centimeters to grow when they’re twenty-one._   “I’m perfectly all right, Mister Potter,” he said, slowly withdrawing his hand from its thorny cage and turning to face Black.  To his shock, he’d managed to keep hold of Black with his other hand, tangled at the back of his robes.  “Mister Black?”

Sirius turned onto his side, huffing with shock and fear.  Severus moved to assist him, but Black reached out a hand to snag Severus’s sleeve and clenched his fist in the black material, then hid his face in shame.

“It only makes sense to stick together in such a place,” Severus said calmly, knowing he had to legitimize Sirius’s action before his shame shifted into anger.  “How many times,” he added.

James was still blinking at him uncertainly.

“I was wondering how many times you had hauled me free of there,” Severus said.  “The question still stands.”

James was trying on bravado, which was so odd that Severus stared.  It was odd because he could tell it was a front, now, but he remembered the exact same expression sending a bolt of fury through him when he was younger – Severus picking at James picking at Severus.  “Enough,” James said, the exact same way Potter, trembling, had faced off against Draco Malfoy, wand aloft:  _scared, Potter?_

_You wish._

Severus had the odd thought that he’d always thought Harry was so much like James, and never once had he thought that James was anything like Harry.  He’d naively placed all of Harry’s irritating qualities under a heading called _James Potter_ and all of his positive ones in two other columns entitled _Lily Evans_ and _upbringing_.  It was more than a bit sobering really, how stupid he’d been.

“I’m in your debt, then,” Severus said with a shudder.  “That was... unpleasant, eh, Black?”

Sirius warbled into the dirt and panted a little.

“No, no, you’re staying right here with us,” Severus said bracingly, shaking him at the shoulder.  “Sit up, that’s it.  Merlin, my kingdom for some Pepper-Up.  Or chocolate,” he added soberly, thinking of Remus.

“Merlin, he sounds just like –”

“He does that, sometimes,” Black said, the first coherent thing he’d muttered since the murder of the Potters on repeat.

“Exactly what do I sometimes do?” Severus murmured, though he thought he knew.  Harry had more than once commented that when Severus wanted to ‘get on’ with people, he adopted Remus’s mannerisms.  Severus supposed it didn’t take a genius of Merlianic proportions to recognize that Remus was better at massaging people into doing as he wanted than Severus on his best day.  It made sense Severus would try to use some of his techniques to produce the same result.

Potter and Black merely eyed each other as only decade-old friends could, what Remus would have called a ‘speaking look’.  It didn’t speak aloud, however. 

“In any case,” Severus said, “I do think we must be going.  I’ve done what I came here to do, and...”  He paused, clearing his throat.  “Mister Potter, unfortunately I have no earthly idea what becomes of anyone who belongs here, then dares to leave.”

“Oh, only all three Deathly Hallows could do that, reckon,” James said, shoving his hands into his pockets and rocking back on his heels.

Severus stared, and Sirius gawped.  They exchanged a helpless, gobsmacked glance.

“I’d forgotten,” Sirius admitted faintly.

Yes, Severus had forgotten too, and little wonder.

“What?”

“The Deathly Hallows.  Death said we should ask about them,” Sirius said.  “That we should ask _you_ , Jamie.  What have you been messing with?”

“Me?” Potter asked, with a wide-eyed expression of sublime innocence that looked more like Draco Malfoy at his worst than any version of Harry Potter.  “What have _I_ done?”

“That’s just what I want to know,” Black pressed.

“Well, I haven’t done anything,” James persisted.  “But if you must know, the Cloak could be a Hallow.  Dad told me the year he died.  Thought he was taking the mickey, of course.”

Severus would have stomped off in a fury if Black weren’t still clutching his sleeve like a four-year-old in a crowded grocery.  “That.  That _blasted_ Cloak.  Is a _Deathly Hallow_.”

“Well, so family legend goes,” James said dismissively.  “Merlin, Snape, don’t make such a fuss.  It’s not like I really _believed_ it was.  You know, I thought it was something like the way the Blacks swear they’ve got Boudicca’s armor.”

Severus thought he might explode from horror.  “All this time... Potter...”

“What?”

“No, _Harry_... has been teetering on the brink of being the Master of Death.”

“Hardly,” James scoffed, “unless I was too.”

“Prongs,” Black said, “that is easily the scariest thing I’ve ever heard.  And I died a bit.”

For once, Severus was in complete agreement with Sirius Black.

“Shut it,” James said easily.  “Anyway, there are two more, right?  One-third the Master of Death is hardly the Master of Death at all.”

But Severus was frowning to himself, putting it together.  Surely Potter would have the Cloak; surely the Stone would be with the other items of Dumbledore’s bequest, if Dumbledore had willed it to Harry as he claimed.  Severus already knew to whom the Wand belonged, if matters were the same as in his own reality.

Merlin above, it was in reach, wasn’t it?

Severus swallowed.  “Potter – if I were to... call.  If your son needed help, and if by some truly Potteresque stroke of luck we happened to have the Hallows.  Would it even be possible for you to come?”

Potter shrugged, laconic with all the willpower in his frame, but Severus could see him thinking carefully.  “I mean, I would come, of course I would.  But I don’t know what sort of power I’d have in the waking world.  The best I could do would be, like, ‘Go on, Harry, mate!  We love you!’  And I can’t imagine what that would feel like, wanting to help him and – being able to _see_ him, but not – I mean, he was just so _tiny_ when I last held him,” James babbled, “all snug in my arms and now I’d be telling him to fight for the glory of the Potter name?”  He shook his head.  “Merlin, Snape, what  _good_ would I do?”

Snape’s heart sank.  “I see.”

“If there were _any way_ , any way at all, you know I would.  You’ll do all right by him, though?” James said, looking at them both, now, eyes desperate.  He reached both hands out to them, and clasped one of Sirius’s hands and one of Severus’s, squeezing hard.

Here, at least, it felt solid as anything.  Solid and, Severus was surprised to note, warm.

“Of course, Mister Potter,” Severus said gently. 

“Sometimes I can see.  Just a glimpse,” Potter said forlornly.  “And don’t get me wrong, Snape, I’m glad he has you.  But I’d be _gladder_ if he had me,” he added, fierce.

“I know,” Severus said, returning the squeeze of James’s hand and releasing him.

“Guess this is goodbye, Padfoot,” James said, and clasped Sirius to him.  “I don’t know how you’ll leave, but if I know this place –”

Suddenly, they were standing at the shore of a vast stream, tributaries dissolving off into the mist.  The tail-end of the skiff was bobbing to and fro – empty – while the front wore a furrow in the sand.  Heavy mist hinted at the presence of rough waters, perhaps a waterfall just out of sight.  Severus squeezed Black’s arm to ensure he was still quite solid; he was, but Potter was nowhere to be seen.

“I didn’t get to pass on the message,” Severus said.  He frowned, and picked a stick up from the crashing beach.

With a decisive hand, he wrote,

 _HARRY POTTER SENDS HIS LOVE_ , and tossed the stick to the sand.

Sirius looked down at the sand, then back up at Severus.  “Who the hell are you, anyhow?”

“I am the man who keeps his promises,” Severus said, “even to you.”

Sirius frowned, and suddenly he was sixteen, freshly kicked out of the Black family home, wary-eyed.  His school scarf fluttered in the breeze, only it was Slytherin green.  “Is that true?” he said, a world in the words.

Severus bit down on his tongue to keep from saying anything that might cause Black to flutter away on that selfsame wind.  “You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?” Severus replied.  “Come along, then, Mister Black, into the skiff; we’ll navigate together.”

Severus pushed the skiff into the water and clambered inside, Black behind him; then, he then stood at the prow, peering into the distance ahead.  He cast a charm and the mists parted a bit, but showed only that they were floating in water and drifting forward, something Severus could have divined for himself.

Black tossed the edge of his scarf over his shoulder and stood as well, gazing off into the mist.  “There are pathways,” he said.

For the first time, Severus saw it, too... that the way split, and meandered... that as the wind shifted, one way was illuminated, and then another...

Black shivered and thrust his hands in his cloak pockets.  “Which way?”

“I learned at Godric’s Hollow that it is intention and purpose that gives us control over our surroundings,” Severus said.  “Perhaps that is what will show us the way.”

Black looked up at him out of wide, grey eyes so like Draco’s.  He scanned Severus’s features, then cast a helpless look around the Between.  “Intention and purpose,” he repeated, with a keen student’s determined, parroting air.

It hadn’t escaped Severus’s notice that in the Between, he was always the same man, whereas Sirius had been in his thirties, twenties, and teens.  Perhaps it was only a matter of time before Severus was left with a squalling baby, but somehow he doubted it.  He suspected that Sirius had finally found his true form: that Azkaban had captured Black in time like a fly in amber.

“What?” Black pressed.

“I think,” Severus said, experimentally, “that only I can pave the way forward.  You do not know where we are going, and you do not know those who stand to meet us.”

“I know Remus,” Sirius said.  “I know Harry.”  But he was stating facts, and his voice was even.

“You do,” Severus agreed, “but we are not to meet _your_ Remus or _your_ Harry.  It’s a long story, but a few explorers were lost along the way.  They are safe, but we must retrieve them.  I think I can find the way, but you will have to hold fast to me.”

The grey eyes flickered in Sirius’s expressive face.  “I won’t let go,” he said, and grabbed a good handful of Severus’s robes and tugged for emphasis.

Severus closed his eyes until he held the image of Draco Malfoy in his mind: the whinging, entitled, spoilt brat, who’d begun to love Harry Potter in spite of himself.  The way that love had, as love does, opened Draco’s insular world enough to let others slip in: Ron and Ginny Weasley, and Granger and Zabini.  The way that love had lifted his gaze to Lord Voldemort’s and made him choose _death-and-Harry_.  His regret at passing information about Severus to the Death Eaters, his atonement...

He felt a sense of motion, heard the sound of the skiff cutting through the water.

...Ron Weasley, himself.  Severus’s earlier memories of the boy involved a lot of overly-jocular attitude and a deep (and all-too-obvious) desire to appear as impressive and interesting as his two best friends.  Oddly, that had changed with the addition of a fourth member to his insular little group.  Somehow, Draco made Ron feel it was safe to be himself; or else Draco’s exaggerated attitude dampened Ron’s.  Severus held a warm memory in his mind, details sharpened by long familiarity with Occlumency:

Severus entered the Hospital Wing, ostensibly to drop off some Scaradicate Solution, but in reality to check on Draco Malfoy, who’d been out of class for three days.  To his shock, Ronald Weasley sat perched _on_ Draco’s bed, seated across from him; a chess board lay between them, the pieces showing they were mid-game.  Weasley was staring at the board, but Draco stared at Weasley: darting little glances he did not believe Ron would catch.  Incredulous glances, as though he could not quite believe Ron were real.  They were both distracted enough not to see Severus slip into Poppy’s empty office and set the Potion down on her desk before turning to observe the boys from the shadowed doorway.

“Ha!  Check and mate,” Ron declared, sliding his bishop into position.

Draco gaped in a manner that was so comical that Severus could hardly hold in a chortle himself, and he expected Weasley to roll on the floor laughing; but Weasley was offering up a cautious smile, instead, the features of a boy who knew he stood on shaky ground.

“You cheated,” Draco said.  “Where did you learn this?  You _cheated_.”

Then Ron did laugh, scooping up the pieces, which were cheering in victory, and carefully stowing them away.  “Sure, Malfoy, you tell yourself so,” he agreed.  “Only the Slytherin’s on your side of the board.”

Draco huffed.  “Well, I don’t know how you keep on winning.”

“Should I let you win?” Weasley asked, and it was impossible to tell whether he was serious or not.

“Don’t be stupid,” Draco snipped.  “I’ll get you one of these nights, Weasley.  Just keep coming back,” he ordered, with a queer little waver in his voice he couldn’t quash in time.  His free hand stroked a fresh bandage wrapped about his forearm.

“ ‘Course, mate, same time tomorrow night,” Weasley said, and waved.

He didn’t see the way that Draco mouthed the word _mate_ silently, as though testing the flavour of the word on his tongue.

Draco didn’t see that Weasley lingered at the door to the Hospital Wing, fidgeting with his bag of chess pieces, abstracted.  “They’ll come ‘round,” he whispered to himself, re-tying the drawstring more tightly.  A fierce, determined look crept across his features.  “They’ve got to,” he added, sneaking one last look to Draco, who was settling into the hospital cot behind him.  Weasley slipped out the main door and into the hallway, joining the door carefully to the jamb.

The water was rushing past, now, the spray splashing Severus’s robes and hands.  That memory had taken them a long way, it seemed, and for the first time it occurred to Severus to wonder if these paths weren’t choices; if, by summoning an unusual memory, he was going to the reality to which those memories belonged.  To test his theory, he conjured the memory of a conversation that had taken place here in the Between: the baby and Harry and Dumbledore.  But the skiff continued to cut through the water like it was pushed by a spell.

That Harry, Severus thought, more desperate and more alone than his own, though gathering allies by the day.  Part of him was glad Draco and Ronald were there to help him, as his task seemed far more onerous than theirs.  Harry’s core goodness that made him who he was had guaranteed he’d take the child back with him, and Severus was burning with curiosity as to how that action had translated in the waking world...

 _Please_ , he thought again, _please let me bring them home._

The skiff jolted and Severus instinctively opened his eyes as he sought to regain his balance.

The small craft had pulled up onto a beach populated by scraggly grass, the lapping sound of the water, a few dark-colored rocks, and an old, black door that, though upright, did not appear to be anchored to anything.

“We did it,” said a wondering voice at his side.

Severus turned to find that Sirius was still there at his right hand, chunk of robes gripped in one, white-knucked fist, expression sobered.  “That’s it,” he went on, jerking a nod at the black monstrosity.  “It’s the same as the one at the Department of Mysteries.”

Severus said nothing, approaching the Door while keeping a firm grip on the boy at his side.  It was not anchored to anything on the other side, either, he discerned as he paced around the thing, but he did not know why he expected the gateway between life and death to follow the laws of physics or conventional magical principles.  If his time here had taught him anything, it was that this world was what he supposed it to be, clay to be molded in the shape of his thoughts.  The Door was the first thing that refused to adapt to his expectations; and to the tentative fingers of his magic, it felt solid.  Immovable.  Immutable.  A fixed point.

“What’re we waiting for?” Sirius said.  “I’d like to get out of here, if it’s all the same to you.”

Severus turned to him.  “Very well.  Listen to me a moment, first.  Listen carefully.”  He waited until Sirius’s large grey eyes were fastened on his.  “If this is to go wrong,” he said, knowing that by saying it he might well be increasing the possibility in a place such as this.  “If it does, you may well end up back in Azkaban.”

Sirius’s features flickered like a dying _Lumos_ charm between the deepened lines of his face, his furrowed brow, his dirt-smudged cheeks, and this newer, younger visage.

“ _If_ you do,” Severus said, “you must remember that it is not real.  You must hold the idea firm in your mind that however many times you go back, that is how many times I will come after you.”  Severus felt his smile turn sinister.  “You remember me at school, _Padfoot_ ,” he said.  “I never, ever gave up or gave in.  Did I?”

Sirius shook his head.  “Stubbornest bastard,” he said, low.

“That’s right,” Severus replied.  “So.  That much is up to you.”

“To remember that you’re coming for me,” Sirius repeated gamely.  “No matter what.  No matter how many times.”

“Five points, Mister Black,” Severus said, suddenly glad that the business with the Unsorted House had made it second nature to award points to the student and not the House.

Sirius was wearing that queerly wary expression again, though, staring into Severus’s face.  “You always looked a little like him, you know,” he said.  “Maybe that was always a little bit of the problem between you and me.”  Sirius shook his head.  “But it doesn’t matter; you’re nothing like him, really.  For one thing,” he added with a sideways grin that looked odd on his youthful features, “you haven’t let go of me, yet.”

Severus looked down at where he was gripping Sirius’s forearm.  “...if I let go, you could go back to Azkaban.”

“ _He_ wouldn’t have cared,” Sirius said, voice wobbling a bit at the end, before he scoffed.  “Don’t know why I’m going on like this.  I just feel weird.”

“All boys your age feel that way,” Severus said with calculated condescension, and to his shock, it worked: Black rolled his eyes and smiled again, weakly.

Together they approached the door and Severus placed the flat of his free hand against it.

Solid.  It was solid and warm, like James’s hand.

Sirius placed the flat of his own, smaller palm beside Severus’s, fingers long and gangly, presaging his grown-up height.  He exchanged a loaded glance with Severus, full of worry and wonder and behind it all, a wellspring of hope just beginning to bubble up through the depths of him.

Severus took in a long, slow breath and placed his hand to the knob.  For a moment, he feared it should be locked; and why wouldn’t it be?  But perhaps because they had permission to leave, or perhaps because they did not belong there at all, or perhaps because they had fought and bit and crawled their way to this tiny island with its gravity-defying door, the knob turned easily under Severus’s hand.

The door opened on soundless hinges to reveal a black beyond blackness.  It was not like looking at the inside of his closed lids, or even like looking up into the vast emptiness of space on a clear evening, because at least the night sky held stars.  This was a black beyond imagining, so black that it did not feel as though the name of a paint colour could possibly describe it; instead, it was looking into vacuum, into an _absence_ so profound that it prodded the gaze away.

“Uh, wow,” said Black intelligently, though Severus could not find it in even his sour heart to blame him.  “So, we’re gonna, uh, walk through that.”

“We are,” Severus said, not allowing himself to falter.

Sirius’s young throat bobbed, but he nodded a beat later.

Perhaps there was something to be said for Gryffindors, after all.  Sirius was pale and trembling and so, so young, a thing of too-long limbs and heartbeat fluttering in his neck, but he swallowed and nodded and looked to Severus.

And Severus, true to form, put one foot before the other until the edge of his serviceable black boot began to disappear into the aether, and with it all of the feeling in his toes.  It did not hurt – it _nothing_ ed – in the most disconcerting way.  “It’s all right,” he told Black, even though he was not the least bit sure it was.  “Though perhaps we’d best go swiftly.”

“Like through the barrier to Platform 9 ¾ ,” Sirius said.

Severus found himself rooted to the sand, but he needn’t have worried about his own lack of Gryffindor bravery: Sirius Black was, as always, already rushing where angels feared to tread.  And it had already become instinct to never let go of him, no matter the provocation.

So it was that Severus Snape tumbled out of the Between nearly headfirst, to land in a heap of limbs with Sirius Black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp, bet you thought I'd died or something.
> 
> Actually, I became chronically ill, and since I have a neurological illness, all my creative ability went completely down the drain. I couldn't focus long enough to write or edit. I've had a lot of improvement over the past few months, so I'm very happy! I haven't finished the story (fair warning!) but the outline exists so I know how many more chapters there are. I'm gleeful to post this, and hoping for lots of feedback to encourage me to continue.


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